HOTSG Essays. Question 1 & 4

Essay 1:
Appearance vs. Reality
In the novel that the class has recently finished reading, The House of the Seven Gables, there appears to be a recurring theme. That theme would be Appearance vs. Reality. There most certainly are numerous examples, situations, characters, etc that present the theme, Appearance vs. Reality, throughout the book. Such an example would be The Judge’s Smile, which is perhaps the scariest and evilest thing in The House of the Seven Gables. Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon is the cousin of Clifford & Hepzibah. Throughout the entire book, the Judge Pyncheon maintains this smile; this is no ordinary smile that he maintains. Yes, it is a fake smile but it as perhaps the most powerful, deceiving smile known to man. For it head the powers. Oh the powers it head; the smile had hypnotic powers, so hypnotic and deceiving it was, that it ought to have been a weapon. With this powerful fake smile, he was able to deceive all. No matter how angry he would become, like he did in Chapter 14 when Hepzibah once more (and for the last time) refused to let Judge Pyncheon see Clifford, that deceiving smile would remain; the narrator knows it, the reader knows it, Hepzibah know it, EVERYBODY knows it. What? That Judge Pyncheon was seething anger, ready to explode at this point during Chapter 14, but he maintained his cool, largely because that smile remains. Part of what made that smile so devious, was the fact that it seemed to have a mind of its own; which would make sense in a way, if the smile had its own mind, conscious. It could explain how Judge Pyncheon was able to maintain the smile; the smile would simply maintain itself by the smile’s own will. And what better way to represent Appearance vs. Reality than with a greatly deceiving smile that never disappears and has a mind of its own, obscuring the true identity and person that Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon is.
Essay 2:
Phoebe & Holgrave’s Love
It shall be assumed that you have completed reading The House of the Seven Gables. Fair Enough? At the end of the story, or at least in the closing pages/chapter, Holgrave declares his love to Phoebe. Phoebe is hesitant at first to admit she loves him too, but inevitably she declares her love for him too. For anybody who saw this coming, deserve a round of applause. Them declaring their love for each other did not seem to make sense; or at least that the establishment of their loved did not seem to tie in with the story or have any relationship except that two important characters have fallen for each other. However, if you look deeper into this you will see their love represents something more than “two important characters have fallen for each other” and actually, their love represents a very important symbol if you will and major part of the resolution of the book. Everyone, one would presume, can agree that the main theme to this book is that your family’s past is carried on with you and in the generations to come, or as properly and “fancily” worded on SparkNotes the internet; The Sins of One Generation Are Visited on the Next. Meaning the sins of your ancestors will be carried out through the following generations. So what their love represents is the breaking of this godforsaken curse/theme. Their love represents the beginning, if not end, of the curse of the Pyncheons and the feud between the Maule’s & the Pyncheons; since Holgrave is a Maule & Phoebe a Pyncheon. Their love marks the hopeful end to the terrible past of the horrible relations between their families during earlier times. It symbolizes that there may finally be peace between the Pyncheons & the Maule’s making the Pyncheons no longer cursed! This being said, the discovery of the meaning of Phoebe & Holgrave’s love is the conclusion and/or resolution to everything the book gave to us.