Maule’s generational curse | Sunday Observer

Maule’s generational curse

25 June, 2017

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne is set in a fictional town in Massachusetts in the mid nineteenth century. It alludes to the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts in the late seventeenth century during which people believed to be practicing witchcraft were executed. The plot centres on the generational curse on the Pyncheon family.

The novel begins with a description of the feud between Matthew Maule, a farmer and Colonel Pyncheon, a prominent individual two hundred years prior to the events in the novel. Colonel Pyncheon robs Maule’s land, and is also guilty of influencing the town’s authorities to execute Maule on charges of practicing witchcraft during the witch trials of the 1690s. On the day of the execution, Colonel Pyncheon watches Maule being led up to the scaffold.

As the hangman puts the rope around Maule’s neck, he turns around to look at Colonel Pyncheon and utters a curse, “God will give him and his descendants blood to drink!”

Colonel Pyncheon ignores the curse and builds a house with seven gables on the land he stole from Maule, and with the expertise of Maule’s own son, Thomas. However, on the day of the house warming party, Colonel Pyncheon is found mysteriously dead in his study. The Pyncheon family is plagued by Maule’s curse, and they suffer many misfortunes over the generations.

Hawthorne explores the way in which an individual’s greed for wealth and power can lead to a generational curse by which his descendants are also destroyed.

Hawthorne also examines how a generational curse can end. 

 

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