Holgrave’s diatribe in Chapter 12 allows
Hawthorne to give voice to contemporary philosophy that transforms
the house of the seven gables into a metaphor for society. When
Holgrave touts some of the Transcendentalist ideas to which Hawthorne
himself was exposed, he stresses the importance of renewal, arguing
that society is based on the views of “Dead Men”—a rather chilling
way of arguing that New England culture is based on stale ideas.
Holgrave’s argument that what is important is to rebuild with each
succeeding generation is of unmistakable relevance to the Pyncheons,
still haunted by a curse generations old. Holgrave’s statement could even
suggest that Matthew Maule’s curse has become a handy excuse for
the misery of the Pyncheon family. Until now, for the most part,
Hepzibah and Clifford have seemed to be helpless prisoners of an
ancient evil, but Holgrave’s politics assign them a degree of agency,
and it becomes somewhat harder to sympathize with their sufferings
when we realize that their problems could disappear once they left
the Pyncheon homestead. Of course, The House of the Seven
Gables is a romance, and in previous pages, including the
incident where Hepzibah and Clifford are unable to go to church,
Hawthorne has presented circumstances as being beyond their control. Holgrave
nevertheless offers a very different perspective, and for a brief
moment the story of the house seems to stand for our own inability
to deal with the problems around us and our unwillingness to even
try.
