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, expresses that she is an innocent woman with an inner spirit to help break the Pyncheon's curse. Clark Giffith records in Hawthorne's Imagery: The "Proper Light and Shadow" in the Major Romances that "Phoebe is rather too obviously a little ray of sunshine..." (37). When Phoebe enters the house "from the sunny daylight," and is almost blinded by the "density of shadows" lurking in the passages of the old house, the contrast between Phoebe's lighted presence against the dark gloomy house can be seen.

Colonel's inflexible sternness and greed. The harpsichord is likened to a

have an inescapable reality. (244-245)

There is a certain suggestion in the novel, though, that the humanity and dignity

In Chapter one, "The Old Pyncheon Family," Hawthorne describes the house using various "dark" elements. He expresses to his readers that the house is in ruins and is destined to collapse, which is representative of the Pyncheon family. Richard Fogle states in Hawthorne's Fiction: The Light and the Dark:

distinguished very clearly in the darkness, but the novel shows that they

darkness is early foreshadowed. Hawthorne describes how the terror and

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Approximate Word count = 939
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)