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Chapter 10: The Pyncheon Garden
Explanation and Analysis—Ideas vs. Facts:
Throughout the book, Hawthorne flirts with the idea that he is an unreliable narrator. For example, in Chapter 18, he at once dismisses the seriousness of ghost stories and also describes the ghosts of all the Pyncheons gathering in the parlor at midnight:
We are tempted to make a little sport with the idea. Ghost stories are hardly to be treated seriously, any longer. The family party of the defunct Pyncheons, we presume, goes off in this wise.
It is a ridiculous legend, Hawthorne states, that this assembly of ghosts ever took place. Nonetheless, he is "tempted to make a little sport with the idea" and goes on to narrate what happens at the assembly. Hawthorne states in his preface that his book is a "romance," not a novel, and that the difference between these two genres is that a romance does not try to stick to probable facts. It is fairly clear when it comes to the assembly of ghosts that Hawthorne is pursuing an exercise in imagination, but his commentary raises the question of where else in the book he is making "a little sport with [an] idea."
Hawthorne is not exactly trying to undermine his credibility by muddying his relationship with the truth. Instead, he wants to be able to take the reader with him into strange and fantastical places. He expresses in Chapter 10 that he needs to be able to rely on the reader's sympathy:
The author needs great faith in his reader’s sympathy; else he must hesitate to give details so minute, and incidents apparently so trifling, as are essential to make up the idea of this garden life.
Hawthorne makes this comment while describing the Edenic life Phoebe and Clifford begin to have together once they have both moved into the House of the Seven Gables. This comment indicates that Hawthorne is trying to convey "the idea of this garden life" by providing details and descriptions that don't seem very relevant. He insists that these details and descriptions are "essential" to conveying not necessarily what happened, but the "idea" of it. He needs to trust that the reader will bear with him, even as he makes claims that might be factually dubious or seemingly unimportant. He owns his status as an unreliable narrator of facts and probability, but he wants the reader to think of him as a highly reliable narrator when it comes to conveying the "ideas" of things. In the case of the ghost assembly, he indulges fantasy to convey the idea of a house that is haunted by its past.
Related Themes:
Chapter 18: Governor Pyncheon
Explanation and Analysis—Ideas vs. Facts:
Throughout the book, Hawthorne flirts with the idea that he is an unreliable narrator. For example, in Chapter 18, he at once dismisses the seriousness of ghost stories and also describes the ghosts of all the Pyncheons gathering in the parlor at midnight:
We are tempted to make a little sport with the idea. Ghost stories are hardly to be treated seriously, any longer. The family party of the defunct Pyncheons, we presume, goes off in this wise.
It is a ridiculous legend, Hawthorne states, that this assembly of ghosts ever took place. Nonetheless, he is "tempted to make a little sport with the idea" and goes on to narrate what happens at the assembly. Hawthorne states in his preface that his book is a "romance," not a novel, and that the difference between these two genres is that a romance does not try to stick to probable facts. It is fairly clear when it comes to the assembly of ghosts that Hawthorne is pursuing an exercise in imagination, but his commentary raises the question of where else in the book he is making "a little sport with [an] idea."
Hawthorne is not exactly trying to undermine his credibility by muddying his relationship with the truth. Instead, he wants to be able to take the reader with him into strange and fantastical places. He expresses in Chapter 10 that he needs to be able to rely on the reader's sympathy:
The author needs great faith in his reader’s sympathy; else he must hesitate to give details so minute, and incidents apparently so trifling, as are essential to make up the idea of this garden life.
Hawthorne makes this comment while describing the Edenic life Phoebe and Clifford begin to have together once they have both moved into the House of the Seven Gables. This comment indicates that Hawthorne is trying to convey "the idea of this garden life" by providing details and descriptions that don't seem very relevant. He insists that these details and descriptions are "essential" to conveying not necessarily what happened, but the "idea" of it. He needs to trust that the reader will bear with him, even as he makes claims that might be factually dubious or seemingly unimportant. He owns his status as an unreliable narrator of facts and probability, but he wants the reader to think of him as a highly reliable narrator when it comes to conveying the "ideas" of things. In the case of the ghost assembly, he indulges fantasy to convey the idea of a house that is haunted by its past.
Related Themes:
