528 Hawthorne, Nathaniel
commerce in The House of the Seven Gables
Hawthorne’s descriptions and characterizations pro-
vide a lens through which to examine 19th-century
Americans’ attitudes toward wealth and material
possessions. The main points of concern are the
greed of Colonel Pyncheon and Judge Jaffrey, the
episodes related to Hepzibah’s cent-shop, and the
mystery surrounding the deed to the lands in the
east.
Colonel Pyncheon’s greed for Matthew Maule’s
land initiates the conflict—“. . . after some thirty
or forty years, the site covered by this rude hovel
had become exceedingly desirable in the eyes of a
prominent and powerful personage, who asserted
plausible claims to the proprietorship of this, and
a large adjacent tract of land. . . .” The land is the
eventual site of the House of the Seven Gables,
designed by one of Matthew’s descendants, Thomas.
Hawthorne describes the house—and possessions
like it—as so impressive that it becomes its own
excuse for existence. “There is something so mas-
sive, stable, and almost irresistibly imposing, in the
exterior presentment of established rank and great
possessions, that their very existence seems to give
them a right to exist.”
Once a seamstress, Hepzibah in her old age is
forced to open a “cent-shop” in the house due to
her nearsightedness and her “tremulous fingers.”
Hepzibah had imagined herself to have been part
of the “aristocracy,” but “after sixty years of nar-
rowing means,” she has to “step down from her
pedestal of imaginary rank.” This is the point at
which Hepzibah is transformed from the “patrician
lady” to the “plebian woman.” At first, Hepzibah is
reluctant to appear to society in a business capacity,
having once considered becoming a teacher. After
her first day at the shop, Hepzibah feels that “the
shop would prove her ruin, in a moral and religious
point of view, without contributing very essentially
towards even her temporal welfare.” Hepzibah’s
customers include Uncle Venner, who doles out
advice such as “Give no credit!” and “Never take
paper money!” One of the townspeople, Dixey,
comments on Hepzibah’s scowl as something that
prevents her from retaining customers—“Why,
her face—I’ve seen it . . her face is enough to
frighten the Old Nick himself . . . People can’t
stand it, I tell you! She scowls dreadfully, reason
or none, out of pure ugliness of temper!” Another
townsperson indicates that such shops are doomed
to failure due to all the competition. “This business
of keeping cent-shops is overdone, like all kinds
of trade, handicraft and bodily labor,” to which
Dixey responds, “Poor business!” When Phoebe
arrives at the house, she brings a new energy and
spirit to the environment, even influencing the
operations of the shop, exclaiming at one point,
“We must renew our stock, Cousin Hepzibah!”
The townsperson and Dixey once again consider
the Pyncheons’ good fortune at the end of the
novel as Dixey reflects, in a reversal of her earlier
sentiment, “Pretty good business!” The setting of
the cent-shop provides Hawthorne with a vehicle
through which to examine the personality of Hep-
zibah as well as the tension between social classes
and Americans’ attitudes toward wealth and com-
modities. In contrast to the cent-shop are settings
such as the garden, which are described in more
metaphysical terms.
Another commercial concern is the deed to a
“vast, and as yet unexplored and unmeasured tract
of eastern lands.” The lands in Maine are “more
extensive than many a dukedom, or even a reigning
prince’s territory, on European soil.” The territory
was eventually given over to “more favored indi-
viduals” and “partly cleared and occupied by actual
settlers.” Hawthorne describes the claim as some-
thing almost laughable and unsubstantial: “This
impalpable claim, therefore resulted in nothing
more solid than to cherish, from generation to gen-
eration, an absurd delusion of family importance,
which all along characterized the Pyncheons.”
However, the claim turns out to be nothing more
than a piece of worthless parchment for which
Judge Jaffrey forces Clifford to suffer. Holgrave
later discovers the deed hidden in the recess of a
wall, covered by a portrait of Colonel Pyncheon.
Thus, Judge Jaffrey’s desire for the deed resulted in
the false imprisonment of Clifford and the alien-
ation of Hepzibah.
Commerce, therefore, operates on one hand as
something necessary and even laudable, as it requires
tremendous effort and a willingness to take risks.
On the other hand, commercialism can become