Previous
Flashbacks
Chapter 5: May and November
Explanation and Analysis—Hepzibah and Phoebe:
Hepzibah and Phoebe are foils. One place where the narrator throws them into relief as such is in Chapter 5, when Hepzibah tells Phoebe that her heart is, metaphorically, a brittle teacup:
"[...]They were almost the first teacups ever seen in the colony; and if one of them were to be broken, my heart would break with it. But it is nonsense to speak so about a brittle teacup, when I remember what my heart has gone through without breaking.”
The cups—not having been used, perhaps, since Hepzibah’s youth—had contracted no small burden of dust, which Phoebe washed away with so much care and delicacy as to satisfy even the proprietor of this invaluable china.
Hepzibah's teacups are old, just like she is. As they have aged, they have become more liable to breakage. Hepzibah claims that her heart has not "broken" in all she has gone through, but the narrator uses Hepzibah's metaphor to emphasize the ways in which her heart has all but broken in two. The cups have not been used since Hepzibah was young and are thus covered in dust. Hepzibah, too, has been shut up in the House of the Seven Gables, which is essentially a storage cupboard for humanity. She, too, has been collecting dust instead of being held or made use of by her fellow humans. She has grown more fragile and less presentable over the years. Opening her cent shop is painful for her in part because her social and economic skills have atrophied from disuse. Just as the teacups must be cleaned before they can be used, Hepzibah requires preparation before she is ready to interact much with the public.
Phoebe is in many senses a young version of Hepzibah. Her father, Arthur Pyncheon, married a poor woman and lost touch with the rest of the Pyncheons. Arthur has since died. Phoebe is trying to have some relationship with the Pyncheons still, but she faces a life not unlike Hepzibah's: she will probably have some access to family wealth but will largely have to do for herself. The difference between the two of them is that Phoebe knows how to work and how to be cheery about it. In this scene, Phoebe carefully cleans off the teacups, demonstrating that she knows how to care for a home. As the chapter goes on, she shows Hepzibah how to run the cent shop with a smile on her face. There is some hope that Hepzibah will be able to turn her life around under Phoebe's instruction. Still, the chapter is titled "May and November." This title and the two women's ongoing behavior suggest that Hepzibah is in the declining "November" of her life, whereas Phoebe is in the hopeful "May" of her life. Furthermore, Hepzibah is clinging to a dying "November" model of femininity. The novel suggests that aristocratic ladies who refuse to work are no longer going to survive in the United States. Instead, the blooming "May" model of femininity is Phoebe, hardworking and happy. The "lady" is being replaced by the "housewife" who does not just live in the house as a haven, but actively maintains it and turns it into her own workplace.
Related Themes:
