Holgrave’s Curious Conversion

Abstract

The House of the Seven Gables is the only one of Hawthorne’s major writings of which it might be said that is is “comic,” in that the conflict it encloses between the Pyncheon family and the world appears succeptible of resolution. Whether this is actually so or not makes a neat problem in interpretation. On the surface the last scene is nothing but comedy: the ogre Jaffrey Pyncheon is dead, the houses of Maule and Pyncheon, — unlike those of Montague and Capulet — are finally cemented by the power of love, a great and ancient wrong is “righted,” and everybody rolls off in a green barouche to the late Judge’s country acres, while the chorus, to an accompaniment given out andante affetuoso by the wraith of Alice Pyncheon upon her harpsichord, makes the comment, “Pretty good business, pretty good business!” The tableau is in spirit if in nothing else not unlike that of the close of Artemus Ward’s version of the “Osawatomie Brown” shows:

Tabloo — Old Brown on a platform, pintin upards, the staige lited up with red fire. Goddiss of Liberty also on, platform, pintin upards. A dutchman in the orkestry warbles on a base drum. Curtin falls. Moosic by the band.