Judge Pyncheon In 'The House Of The Seven Gables'

The way a story is told is completely different depending on the narrator because of their point of view. An example of this incident is in the passage from Nathaniel Hawthorne¡¯s The House of the Seven Gables. The sarcastic way that the character Judge Pyncheon is revealed through the narrator is distinguished through the narrator¡¯s (not the author¡¯s) style of writing including tone, selection of detail, and syntax. The tone of this passage goes from a bitter sarcasm to an almost angry incredulity.
In the beginning of the passage, the narrator lists Pynchoeon¡¯s supposedly ¡°good¡± traits to show how ¡°great¡± of a person he is. This leads us to believe that Pyncheon is a very fake person, which reveals the narrator¡¯s bitterness toward Pyncheon. In the last part of the passage, the narrator starts to sound angry and in disbelief that someone as evil as Pyncheon is treated with such respect.
In the beginning, the narrator uses strong adjectives to stress his sarcasm.
His sarcasm is first revealed in the beginning. The ¡°splendid rubbish¡± that Pyncheon used to cover up his ¡°active and subtile conscience¡± shows that Pyncheon committed a wrongdoing. The ¡°splendid rubbish¡± contradicts itself, which shows the narrator¡¯s sarcasm. He lists the positive details about Pyncheon but because he uses strong and sharp descriptions, these positives and negatives clash to create an overall negative effect: sarcasm. In the end, the narrator becomes overly passionate of his opinion and speaks out his true thoughts about Pyncheon, which are of abhorrence. Pyncheon¡¯s ¡°reckless youth¡± was full of his ¡°questionable [deed]s¡± but society had blinded him in his judgment about himself. The narrator clearly states that no one good deed can cover up for an evil one. This moral is revealed to the reader through the negative adjectives of the narrator¡¯s
detail. When reading this passage, the reader immediately realizes that the first part of the passage is one long, unceasing sentence that contains innumerable semicolons to separate the points. This sentence automatically bores the reader because of both its length and its content. This sentence contains sharp and strong words and many semicolons to create a short and choppy pace. Despite its pace, the descriptions are overly praising Pyncheon that the reader realizes the narrator¡¯s sarcasm. The reader gradually becomes bored reading the long list of praises about Pyncheon and is glad when they finally see an exclamation point at the end of the sentence. In the end, the flow of the passage is even more staccato than the beginning, not because of the length of the sentences, but because of the narrator¡¯s passion of this subject. He uses several exclamation points to stress his points to the reader and is successful in getting his point across. The narrator of The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne uses sarcasm and several literary devices combined to reveal Judge Pyncheon to the reader. Tone, selection of detail, and syntax all have to do with the negatively opinionated narrator¡¯s means of revealing Judge Pyncheon.