Other People's Dreams

Where has Clifford gone? In the five days since the storm started, he hasn’t left his room, yet, now that Hepzibah is in desperate need of him, he can’t be found. Where could he have gone?

As Hawthorne plunges Hepzibah into her living nightmare, Clifford is released of his and awakens to find his dreams coming true—he can now rid himself of the past and fulfill his youthful dreams!

Hepzibah desperately calls for help in finding her mentally unstable brother—so intense is her desperation that she turns to Judge Jaffrey, her sole enemy, for his aid. Yet the old gentleman does not move! He does not care for her desperation but mocks her with mute silence. As she searches the lower floors, Clifford reveals himself, quite in the opposing disposition of his sister. With celebrations of freedom, Clifford hurries Hepzibah out of the house that has imprisoned them for so long.

The siblings flee the morbid house of their ancestors into the pouring rain. Their destination? Anywhere but the house of seven gables. Hepzibah, lost within her nightmare, willing gives leadership of the situation to the childlike Clifford.

“Clifford! Clifford! Is not this a dream?”
“A dream, Hepzibah!” repeated he, almost laughing in her face. “On the contrary, I have never been awake before!” (190)

The very event that drowns Hepzibah in a nightmare, awakens Clifford to his greatest dreams. And where do they run to? The crowding throng of people we call the world.

“Here we are, in the world, Hepzibah!—in the midst of life!—in the throng of our fellow beings! Let you and I be happy!” Happy. A word formerly unknown to the ancient siblings. But can Hepzibah truly be happy outside of the world she has known for so long? Though covering vast miles at a quick pace aboard the train, Hepzibah can’t rid the familial establishment from her mind. “This one old house was everywhere! It transported its great, lumbering bulk with more than railroad speed, and set itself phlegmatically down on whatever spot she glanced at” (191). Will Clifford be happy in the new world he has found? They have taken the step of faith—but was it right?

Clifford and Hepzibah board the train with no particular destination in mind. The flight has freed Clifford and, for the first time, we see Clifford’s youthful dreams. Freed from the oppression of his gabled prison, Clifford revolts against structure, just like Holgrave. He explains to the conductor that the railroad “is destined to do away with those stale ideas of home and fireside, and substitute something better” (192). Like the young dagurrtypist , he sees that “all human progress is in a circle” and that “the past is but a coarse and sensual prophecy of the present and the future” (192).

You are lost in your dream Clifford. Think sensibly—like the conductor “I should scarcely call it an improved state of things to live everywhere and nowhere!” Why must you run, Clifford? From what are you escaping? An old man cannot relive his youth, even if it was robbed from him. Oh, Clifford, beware—guard your heart. What you believe may be only a dream.

(534)

Some People's Nightmares

Poor Hepzibah! For thirty years she has locked herself within a dismal, rotting, ancestral home fortified only with absolute, unconditional love for her brother, Clifford and resolute hatred for her cousin, Judge Jaffrey. During Clifford’s absence, Hepzibah maintained a secluded existence free from the blazing, forced smile of her grave enemy. But, now that Clifford has returned home she endures that overbearing smile more often than she would like.

I almost wish Hawthorne had left the poor old girl alone. Sure, her existence was meaningless and the future was nothing but bleak, but at least she was merely a shadow skirting a nightmare. Though penny-less, she had provision. Though alone for so long, Clifford and Phoebe brought friendship. Though surrounded by ghosts and tradition, she retained some sanity. Now, all her worst dreams have come true.

Poor Hepzibah! Her beloved brother—whom she gives sacrificially for—cannot stand the sight of her! But no matter, she will love and serve him anyway, after all, that’s what she has been waiting to do since his unfortunate departure.

Poor Hepzibah! Since Clifford’s return to the house of seven gables, Hepzibah has had to gird herself with courage—trembling courage—in order to defy Judge Jaffrey’s demanding orders. But with each interview she has become more resolute. Surely she will never give in.

Until the Judge reveals his dastardly plot: now, either way Hepzibah chooses results in the depravation and destruction of the one she loves most. Truly her life has slipped from skirting a nightmare to being plunged deep within it without a breath of air.

With trembling steps and a wandering mind, Hepzibah sets off to get Clifford and lead him, as it were, to the gallows. Poor Hepzibah! If only she could get help! If only the community knew the darkness behind the sunshine of the Judge’s smile!

(Now, I don’t want to give away too much, after all, dear friend, I highly recommend you read this book for yourself, but I do want to entice you to read on.)

In a rush of words and action (that has been hitherto absent from Hawthorne’s novel) Hawthorne shows us Hepzibah as we have not seen her before. A Hepzibah drowning in her worst nightmare—confused, scared, and childlike. A woman to be pitied.

As the two owls flee into the night and Clifford discovers the youth he once knew, Hepzibah is thrust into a living nightmare and can only hope that she will soon awake.

(414)

Inside Out

Simple-minded Clifford Pyncheon has missed a lot of changes in this thirty-year absence. One of his favorite pastimes is sitting at the arched window on the second floor of the family estate and watching the world pass by. But what interest has an old man with modern invention?

Clifford finds most interest and pleasure in pictures and reminders of his childhood past. Children playing in the streets and horse-drawn carriages bring a smile to his face. On the other hand, modern inventions like trains and omnibuses are deemed ugly and loud by the worshipper of Beauty.

But the pleasure of watching the world pass outside the second-story window is more than a pastime—it’s a picture. The self-imprisoned siblings sit within the Pyncheon estate observing the life, day to day life, of the world outside. Something needs to happen within Hepzibah and Clifford to draw them outside themselves so they can join humanity.

Hepzibah and Clifford need to take a leap of faith—one step outside of themselves and the prison they have created out of their home. A leap of faith would change their worlds forever.

And Clifford almost leaps. Literally.

While watching a parade go by, Clifford is moved with so much passion to rejoin humanity, he steps out from behind the curtain that has hidden him and proceeds to step out of the window itself. Hepzibah and Phoebe, motivated by fear for the troubled man’s life, reach out to Clifford and pull him back in.

Did they do the right thing?

Clifford, in response to Hepzibah’s exclamation of fear says, “Fear nothing—it is over now—but had I taken that plunge, and survived it, methinks it would have made me another man!?” (124) Hawthorne further illuminates Clifford’s insight, saying, “He needed a shock; or perhaps he required to take a deep, deep plunge into the ocean of human life, and to sink down and to be covered by its profoundness, and then to emerge, sobered, invigorated, restored to the world and to himself.” That one step—that one leap of faith—would have freed Clifford from his prison. But he was stopped.

The opportunity to change doesn’t stop with Clifford’s moment of insanity. Later, as he and Hepzibah watch the people of the city celebrate the Sabbath, Clifford is tempted once again to take a step of faith. The siblings dress in their decaying best and prepare to worship. They make it as far as the threshold. Immediately, they felt the weight of their imprisonment upon them. How could they ever consider leaving their home? “It cannot be, Hepzibah!—it is too late,” said Clifford with deep sadness. “We are ghosts! We have no right among human beings—no right anywhere but in this old house, which as a curse on it, and which, therefore, we are doomed to haunt!” (126)

Who is this prisoner that confines the aging siblings within a cursed home? Themselves. Clifford and Hepzibah can only view the world from the inside out because, as Hawthorne’s imperative question asks, “what other dungeon is so dark as one’s own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one’s self!” (126)

(525)

The Nature of Light, Part 2

NATURE (THE GARDEN)

So, the first theme I noticed was the depiction of Phoebe as light. The second one I’m choosing to follow is Hawthorne’s use of nature (specifically the Pyncheon garden)—in which Phoebe is referenced as a flower.

The garden is comprised of three parts: the flowers (duh), Maule’s well (which is supposedly cursed), and the chickens (yes, I said chickens).

The first look at the Pyncheon garden is a bleak one. Weeds, which Hawthorne likens to the transferred vices of society, overrun the once glorious garden. The few flowers in bloom are fighting against both the weeds and mold. A small well, filled troubled water flowing over colorful rocks, creates images that a man could obsess over for a lifetime. While the water looks pure and inviting, may the reader and Phoebe beware: the water is cursed by Matthew Maule himself. Finally, the garden houses a line of chickens as aristocratic and old as the Pyncheon family itself. The chickens, humorously referred to as Chaucer’s Chanticleer and wives, are a measly, dying breed.

The garden—like Hepzibah, the old house, and the Pyncheon family—has fallen into disrepair and decay. The flowers are molding, the water is bewitched, and the chickens are as pitiful as their mistress.

That is, until Phoebe arrives.

Truly, Phoebe represents light, but she also represents the life-giving power of nature. As she leans out the window on the first morning of her stay at the House of Seven Gables, Phoebe’s sweet breath livens the roses blooming outside her window. One sweet breath and the garden’s flowers are ready to awaken from their long, moldy slumber.

When Phoebe finally makes her way to the garden she mourns at the condition of the garden—mold and weeds overrun the once beautiful garden, but she is confident the garden can be returned to its former glory. As she continues to explore the garden, she meets Chanticleer, his wives, and the little chicken. Disturbed by their looks, Phoebe runs inside to fetch the fowls some food. When she returns, she is surprised to find Hepzibah’s tenant, Holgrave, at work in the garden. He expresses his wonder at the chickens taking to the young Pyncheon, “the fowls know you to be a Pyncheon!” he remarks. “The secret is,” said Phoebe, smiling, “that I have learned how to talk with hens and chickens.”—Practical-minded Phoebe will make no allowance for the affection of the chickens except her rural upbringing. She doesn’t know that Hawthorne uses her presence to give the garden new life—but Holgrave does.

Hawthorne continues to shroud Maule’s well with mystery. Phoebe recognizes the cursed bubbling water only as a pool of water surrounded by mossy rocks. As Holgrave departs he sends Phoebe a warning:

“Be careful not to drink at Maule’s well. Neither drink nor bathe your face in it!”
“Maule’s well!” answered Phoebe. “Is that it with the rim of mossy stones? I have no thought of drinking there, --but why not?”
“Oh,” rejoined the daguerreotypist, “because, like an old lady’s cup of tea, it is water bewitched!”

(514)

The Nature of Light

Hawthorne packs The House of Seven Gables full of literary symbols and themes. At first, the number of themes overwhelmed me—how was I going to be able to follow the links of all these themes?

I’m not.

At least not in this reading (it is, after all, only the first time I have read The House of Seven Gables. I’ll leave some themes to be further followed and developed for another reading.). I have no doubt I’ll read about Hawthorne’s house cover-to-cover a few more times in the next few years.

The themes I have been captured by and am choosing to follow are captured and personified in one character: Phoebe Pyncheon. Phoebe is the young cousin of our aging Miss Hepzibah—and truly, Hawthorne describes her in direct opposition to the old woman. Phoebe is young and beautiful, careless of the weight of aristocracy (she grew up on a farm, away from the decaying house), and domestic. But there’s more.

LIGHT

Hawthorne describes Hepzibah as a shadow, wandering the dark hallways of the family house like the ghosts of the generations before. The author even says that “neither sunshine nor household fire” could be found in the old woman or the house (55).

The outlook of the story looks bleak until Hawthorne introduces Phoebe. If Hepzibah is a shadow, Phoebe is a beam of light. From the moment she enters the story, Phoebe shines into Hepzibah’s bland world and brightens the future of the Pyncheon family. The first paragraph of chapter five is filled with light references describing Phoebe—she has a bloom on her cheeks and is called a dewy maiden (like the Dawn itself).

As the story progresses, Hawthorne continually refers to Phoebe as light. When the young girl meets Clifford, who seems to live in more darkness than Hepzibah, Phoebe’s light pierces his shroud of darkness. Her presence and voice bring light to his troubled world. The old man refers to her as light captured within a dew drop on a rose petal.

Phoebe is the light of The House of Seven Gables. Though I have not completed the story yet, I’m sure the fate of the Pyncheons lies within Phoebe.

(366)

the weight of aristocracy

The centerpiece of The House of Seven Gables is the aristocratic Pyncheon family and the house of the title. The first chapter outlines the history of the Pyncheon family after the colonel “acquired” his desired land at the cost of Matthew Maule’s life. 

Colonel Pyncheon

The patriarch of the Pyncheon family is colonel Pyncheon. Hawthorne describes him as a selfish yet upstanding Puritan focused solely on increasing his power and family fortune. As a descendent of English aristocracy, colonel Pyncheon, upholds class distinctions while reaching out to the lower class. The connection of his mysterious death and Maule’s curse casts a 160-year gloom over the house Pyncheon erected on Maule’s land. 

Now Hawthorne gives the reader an insight—a negative insight—on Colonel Pyncheon, however, humanity in general sees him as a fine, upstanding, honest Puritan.

Pyncheon set the standard for his family. He was proud of the heritage his family had and sought to extend the family power and prominence by attaining a supposed land promise in Maine. His bulwark stand against Maule’s curse and fight for his aristocratic rights passed, though diluted, from generation to generation.

The mysterious death of the Colonel, linked to Maule’s curse, begins the downward, degenerating cycle of the Pyncheons. Slowly, the family fell apart under the weight of the patriarchal aristocracy. 

Hepzibah Pyncheon

Fast-forward from the Colonel 160 years and Hawthorne introduces his readers to Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon, a degenerating aristocrat imprisoned within her molding family home. She is prisoner to no one but herself and the weight of familial aristocracy.

Hepzibah only knows the life of an aristocrat—waited on hand and foot and having every need provided. Hawthorne shows Hepzibah’s aristocracy through a meticulous description of her daily routine. In just a few pages, Hawthorne describes Hepzibah’s leisure-centered, hermit lifestyle.  Yet, his introduction of Hepzibah is so thorough that he has able to introduce Hepzibah’s struggle with the Colonel’s familial standard. 

The Pyncheon family, like the house Hepzibah lives in, has fallen into decay. Hepzibah is poor and destitute. She has attained a border to help make ends meet, but she realizes that she must go a step further. With fear and trembling, Hepzibah realizes she must resist her aristocratic upbringing and become a “common” shop owner. Oh the weight of aristocracy! Hawthorne eloquently addresses the old woman breaks under the weight of aristocracy ash she opens her house and herself to the scornful eyes of a haughty Pyncheon.

(408)

Hawthorne & the Salem Witch Trials

I have always enjoyed reading Hawthorne’s works. “The Birth-Mark” and The Scarlet Letter are, to this point in my life, my Hawthorne must-reads. Maybe it’s my cynical nature (after all, I do enjoy Poe as well). Maybe it’s the gothic romance—the wonderment of how a person could have such a dismal outlook on life (have you read The Fall of the House of Usher by Poe?). After one class period and two chapters, The House of Seven Gables is chalking up to be another gothic romance I’m going to enjoy cover-to-cover.

I have to admit, paragraph one of Hawthorne’s classic confused and upset me. I read and reread the paragraph three or four times and finally huffed in frustration—way too many clauses and descriptors! I lost the subject of the first sentence (which, at 36 words is a little long for an introductory sentence).

After fighting through the first sentence, Hawthorne grabbed my attention. I felt as if he grabbed my hand and pulled me into the book—I was no longer a reader, but visiting the little New England town, walking alongside him as he described the House of Seven Gables on Pyncheon Street.

Hawthorne starts The House of Seven Gables with mystery, deception, and an old fashioned witch trial—what better tools are there to grab a reader’s attention?

In the first chapter, Hawthorne retells the history of the Pyncheon estate known as the House of Seven Gables. I found some of his descriptions intriguing as they tied the house, not only to New England’s past, but also to his own as well. The addition of Matthew Maule, the original owner of the property of the regal house, as a witch raises interest and questions. Was Maule a witch? Did Colonel Pyncheon justly receive the land he had so long fought for?

As I read the interaction between Maule and Colonel Pyncheon, I recalled my participation in The Crucible by Arthur Miller. Though fiction, Miller used historical characters to tell a horrific story of the Salem Witch Trials in colonial Massachusetts Bay. Abigail Williams and several young ladies of the town were involved in witchcraft and struggled to hide their worship from the religious town. Driven to desperation, the girls begin accusing innocent persons of witchcraft leading to the death of many upstanding citizens. The correlation between Colonel Pyncheon and Abigail Williams captured me. Wasn’t Pyncheon just as guilty as Williams? Didn’t they both use their reputation and propriety to accuse and condemn the innocent just to get what they wanted? Creepy . . . yet intriguing.

Hawthorne’s own past was connected to the Salem witch trials. His great-grandfather, Judge Hathorne, was responsible for sentencing a number of persons to death during the Salem Witch Trials. History tells us that Hawthorne was ashamed of his heritage—he even changed the spelling of his name (he added a ‘w’) to separate himself from his haunting past. Yet the inclusion of Salem, Puritanism, and the witch trials make me wonder if he carried a heavy load of guilt from Judge Hathorne’s actions.

Hathorne also connects himself to the work through the description of the Pyncheon family. If he truly carried familial guilt, as I suppose he does, it would go to reason that the Hathornes, like the Pyncheons, were filled with family pride and bound to the duty of tradition. Why did Hawthorne change his name? To break the ties to duty—if he wasn’t a Hathorne, he wasn’t bound to the family . . . right?

(598)

preface

Ah, what a great day to start a new blog! I have offically begun all my classes of my final semester as a resident Maranatha student--what a wonderful feeling!

I want to begin this blog with a preface on the information you will find each time you log in. "From Cover to Cover" serves as my journal for my literature class, Topics in Literature. As the semester progresses, posts will cover my thoughts as I read assigned material, my thoughts and gleenings from class discussion, and how I relate what I'm reading to my life, both past and present.

I hope, whether a classmate, instructor, or friend, you learn along with me and find that literature is wonderful, cover to cover.