The Unredeemable Sin: Inheritance, Gothicism, and the Possibility of Salvation in The House of the Seven Gables

Abstract

The House of the Seven Gables is a Gothic romance that deals with the conflict of ownership and inheritance in a uniquely American setting of New England. This paper argues that The House of the Seven Gables’ happy marriage of Phoebe Pyncheon and Holgrave does not redeem the Pyncheons’ sinful past and the apparent unraveling through marriage functions as an act to maintain the class distinction and to present ownership as an Eden-like and natural state of affairs. Discussed in a religious context, the Gothic modes in the novel, though secularized to an extent, completely conform to this prevalent interpretation. The subversion of the Puritan Calvinist theology and entailed predestination and its containment in liberal theology allows the present generation to redefine their condition by their own will. This new, semi-Jeffersonian world of the present leaves the conflict of ownership unresolved; questions about the lawful and just rights of property and inheritance are too readily overshadowed by the optimistic and lightsome ending of the novel.