LAQ: The House of Seven Gables

The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne 

     I read the eBook for this book so I will have quotes but I won't have accurate page numbers since the page size is different for an eBook than for a regular book. 

GENERAL:

1. The troubles for the Pyncheon family commenced with the death of one man, Mathew Maule, “Old Mathew Maule, in a word, was executed for the crime of witchcraft (page 49).”  I guess a really famous quote from Resident Evil that embodies this story is, "The problem was, he didn't stay dead." He actually came back and haunted the family. 
2. The sins of our father's come back to haunt us. This theme kind of reminded me of The Fog where the founding father's of a town raided a gypsy ship and killed the passengers in order to amount enough money to start up the town. The town thrived and generations later, the ghosts of the gypsies came back and reclaimed their gold, one piece of jewelry at a time. In this novel, Mathew comes back and haunts the Pyncheon family. Basically, don't do anything that could harm others because your flesh and blood will pay for it. 
3. The tone was dark and ominous at most scenes in the novel. The two last remaining Pyncheon members currently reside in a house where their distant relative had killed and buried a man and built a house of his grave. Obviously, the ghost hants the house because the house is of his grave. Also, the fact that Uncle Clifford is "visiting" even though one Pyncheon member clearly members hearing that Uncle Clifford had died. He has a pallid color so the audience doubts whether is a ghost or just really old.
4. A) Irony: “Colonel Pyncheon’s sudden and mysterious end made a vast deal of noise in its day (page 84).” –Ironic because he died in the house that he had killed another man to make. B) Imagery: “The company, tremulous as the leaves of a tree, when all are shaking together, drew nearer, and perceived that there was an unnatural distortion in the fixedness of Colonel Pyncheon's stare; that there was blood on his ruff, and that his hoary beard was saturated with it (page 86).”                                                                                                                                C) Hyperbole-“There were many rumors, some of which have vaguely drifted down to the present time, how that appearances indicated violence; that there that there were the marks of fingers on his throat, and the print of a bloody hand on his plaited ruff; and that his peaked beard was dishevelled, as if it had been fiercely clutched and pulled ( page 87).”  D)Metamorphosis-“A lady—who had fed herself from childhood with the shadowy food of aristocratic reminiscences, and whose religion it was that a lady's hand soils itself irremediably by doing aught for bread,—this born lady, after sixty years of narrowing means, is fain to step down from her pedestal of imaginary rank. Poverty, treading closely at her heels for a lifetime, has come up with her at last. She must earn her own food, or starve (page 181)!"                                                                                                                          E)Metaphor-“when the image of hope itself seems ponderously moulded of lead, on the eve of an enterprise at once doubtful and momentous (page 200).”                                   F)Rhetorical question-“Success? Preposterous! She would never think of it again (page 230)!”                                                                                                                                     G)Allusion-“One perceived him to be a personage of marked influence and authority; and, especially, you could feel just as certain that he was opulent as if he had exhibited his bank account, or as if you had seen him touching the twigs of the Pyncheon Elm, and, Midas-like, transmuting them to gold (264).”                                                                                                      H) Simile-“To this last apothegm poor Hepzibah responded with a sigh so deep and heavy that it almost rustled Uncle Venner quite away, like a withered leaf (260).”                        I)Internal Dialogue-“There he is!" said Hepzibah to herself, gulping down a very bitter emotion, and, since she could not rid herself of it, trying to drive it back into her heart. "What does he think of it, I wonder? Does it please him? Ah! he is looking back(267)!” J)Aphorism-“Nowadays, a man would not dare to be called King; and if he feels himself a little above common folks, he only stoops so much the lower to them (290).” K)Foreshadowing-“Well, well, child, perhaps he has!" said Hepzibah with a sad, hollow laugh; "but, in old houses like this, you know, dead people are very apt to come back again (346)!” L)Anaphora-“Well done! well done! well done (373)!”                                                             M)Personification-“I don't much like pictures of that sort,—they are so hard and stern; besides dodging away from the eye, and trying to escape altogether. They are conscious of looking very unamiable, I suppose, and therefore hate to be seen (411)"

CHARACTERIZATION:

1. Direct characterization: “Colonel Pyncheon, the claimant, was characterized by an iron energy of purpose (page 46).” In this quote, Hawthorne tells us directly what kind of personality the colonel has. “Mathew Maule on the other hand, though an obscure man, was stubborn in the defense of what he considered his right (page 46).” Here the author compares Maule with Pyncheon and tells the read how they differ while directly telling the readers what kind of people they are.                                                                                                                                       
Indirect characterization: “He [Mathew Maule] succeeded in protecting the acre or two of earth which, with his own toil, he had hewn out of the primeval forest, to be his garden ground and homestead (page 47).” Hawthorne tells the reader that Maule is a hardworking man who cares about his home and values it by telling us what Maule is willing to do for his homestead.
2. Hawthorne would definitely have a doctorate in English with his use of diction. Many if not all of his sentences contain a word that is elevated in a normal vocabulary arsenal. Words such as pressive, amplitude, vicissitudes and that is just in one paragraph.
 Just the ways he says a sentence and uses certain verbs, you can tell he is from a different time than our own, “On my occasional visits to the town aforesaid, I seldom failed to turn down Pyncheon Street, for the sake of passing through the shadow of these two antiquities, - the great elm tree and the weather beaten edifice (page 39).” Hawthorne’s syntax is very descriptive. It’s as if he feels the need to describe every little detail, down to the flowers in the vase. At times I do get bored just because he doesn’t get to the point.
3. Its kind of funny how the majority of the books I read have a gloomy and scary kind of tone. The family is being haunted by a ghost of course they are on edge waiting to see what the ghost will do and how he will enact his revenge. 
4. I did not come away feeling like this was even a believable book. Considering the topic throughout the story was witchcraft, my brain couldn’t really accept it as a reality. I know that people were charged with crimes of witchcraft and many died at the stake but still it didn’t really register in my brain as a factual tale. I understand karma and that that could happen but it doesn’t necessarily mean ghosts are going to come back to life and avenge their family lineage. Just reading this quote I couldn’t take the book seriously: “Old Mathew Maule, in a word, was executed for the crime of witchcraft (page 49).”