seven gables is, then, the locus of a conflict between wealth and poverty, prominence and obscurity, that, unresolved and apparently unresolvable, binds generation after generation of Pyncheons and Maules to one another. (463) Hepzibah Pyncheon represents the aristocracy of American society. Her family name and the legacy of her ancestors grant her a position in the social order. However, her lack of wealth forces her to seek alternate means of supporting herself. Despite her fears and misgivings, Hepzibah steps outside of her aristocratic comfort zone and, out of her extreme need, opens a cent shop in her home. This step is viewed by Hepzibah herself as an extreme form of degradation and offends her aristocratic sensibility to the core. On the day of her new enterprise, she is completely overcome by her interactions with those few members of society that enter her shop. She is offended by the or tones she is “familiar” “rude” addressed in and is baffled by the fact that her customers considered “evidently themselves not merely her equals, but her patrons and superiors” (Hawthorne 41). The brief workday’s encounters are enough to alter Hepzibah’s perceptions and attitudes toward the society that she lives in: Her new experience led [Hepzibah] to very disagreeable conclusions as to the temper and manners of what she termed the lower classes, whom, heretofore, she had looked down upon with a gentle and pitying complacence, unfortunately, she had likewise to struggle against a bitter
seven gables is, then, the locus of a conflict between wealth and poverty, prominence and obscurity, that, unresolved and apparently unresolvable, binds generation after generation of Pyncheons and Maules to one another. (463) Hepzibah Pyncheon represents the aristocracy of American society. Her family name and the legacy of her ancestors grant her a position in the social order. However, her lack of wealth forces her to seek alternate means of supporting herself. Despite her fears and misgivings, Hepzibah steps outside of her aristocratic comfort zone and, out of her extreme need, opens a cent shop in her home. This step is viewed by Hepzibah herself as an extreme form of degradation and offends her aristocratic sensibility to the core. On the day of her new enterprise, she is completely overcome by her interactions with those few members of society that enter her shop. She is offended by the “familiar” or “rude” tones she is addressed in and is baffled by the fact that her customers “evidently considered themselves not merely her equals, but her patrons and superiors” (Hawthorne 41). The brief workday’s encounters are enough to alter Hepzibah’s perceptions and attitudes toward the society that she lives in: Her new experience led [Hepzibah] to very disagreeable conclusions as to the temper and manners of what she termed the lower classes, whom, heretofore, she had looked down upon with a gentle and pitying complacence, unfortunately, she had likewise to struggle against a bitter
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