House Of The Seven Gables Metaphors

The Analysis of Light and Dark Imagery Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables, uses many qualities of symbolism which help develop the novel’s main ideas. Darkness is the emblematic “color” of the Pyncheon’s. Contrasted with its opposite, light, it forms one of the major symbols of the novel: the opposition of dark and light. Hawthorne uses dark imagery throughout his novel to express a sense of decay, but he also uses light imagery to inject hope. Nathaniel Hawthorne in The House of the Seven Gables describes Phoebe as “an illuminating speck of light transforming the darkness of the house like the light of dawn” (92). This description of Phoebe, using light imagery,
Hawthorne describes how the terror and ugliness of Maule’s crime ‘darkened’ the freshly painted walls of the house until it became a gray, feudal castle. (220-221) Hawthorne’s use of darkness in the novel usually represents the decaying of either theHawthorne’s use of darkness in the novel usually represents the decaying of either the house or the family. In American Writers , Leonard Unger states “Clifford’s dressing gown is now a dark and faded garment, and it is thus a fitting emblem for its wearer and a symbol for the entire Pyncheon family” (242). Leonard Unger also goes on to state that there are many other objects located in the Pyncheon’s house that symbolizes the decaying lifestyle of the Pyncheons family: The darkness of the old Pyncheon house is impressive and significant. Within its depths are shadowy emblems of the past, each representing evil geniuses of the Pyncheon family. The ancestral chair is a reminder not only of the old Colonel but also the susceptibility to Maule’s curse (what
(244-245) In Chapter seventeen, “The Guest,” Clifford describes the Pyncheon’s dark and deadly house of the seven gables as “...a rusty, crazy, creaky, dry-rotted, damp-rotted, dingy, dark, and miserable dungeon.” He also goes on to say it is “a great, gloomy, dark-chambered mansion . . . a dark, low, cross-beamed, paneled room of an old house.” Both these descriptions of the house give off the dark decaying setting which helps to develop the contrasting ideas of both light and dark imagery within the novel. Unger expresses that the dark Pyncheon’s house holds many items that symbolize the Pyncheons decaying lifestyle. The contrasting light and dark images used in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel help each other to balance out good and evil. Darkness creates the image of the decaying Pyncheon family while light, counteracting the effects of darkness, creates hope and a sign of redemption. In the end, light overcomes the dark decaying world of the Pyncheons sins, and the goodness still left within the family remain