How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Alice complied, She was very proud. Setting aside all advantages of rank, this fair girl deemed herself conscious of a power—combined of beauty, high, unsullied purity, and the preservative force of womanhood—that could make her sphere impenetrable, unless betrayed by treachery within. She instinctively knew, it may be, that some sinister or evil potency was now striving to pass her barriers; nor would she decline the contest. So Alice put woman's might against man's might; a match not often equal on the part of woman. (13.62)
Some might say that The House of the Seven Gables really jumps the shark here. The whole idea that Matthew Maule II puts Alice Pyncheon under hypnosis seems truly contrived. But bear in mind – hypnosis, a.k.a. Mesmerism, was the hot new science in the first half of the 19th century. Popular novelists like Charles Brockden Brown also used hypnosis as a plot device. That said, we can't really explain why Hawthorne decides to make this a battle of the sexes kind of a thing, with a "woman's might against man's might." We guess it just sounded dramatic to him?
Quote #8
Poor Hepzibah! Could she have understood this fact, it would have brought her some little comfort; for, to all her other troubles, – strange to say!—there was added the womanish and old-maiden-like misery arising from a sense of unseemliness in her attire. Thus, she was fain to shrink deeper into herself, as it were, as if in the hope of making people suppose that here was only a cloak and hood, threadbare and woefully faded, taking an airing in the midst of the storm, without any wearer! (17.4)
How odd, once more, that Hawthorne should stop to comment on "the womanish and old-maiden-like" misery of Hepzibah feeling embarrassed about her clothing. Is vanity about clothing truly such a "womanish" obsession? What about the care with which we are told Judge Pyncheon dresses? Hawthorne never fails to comment on his gold-topped cane or the respectability of his snowy white shirts (which he won't be needing where he's going). Hawthorne's manner of describing Hepzibah really shows the mark of the era he's writing in.
Quote #9
If a fixed idea be madness, she was perhaps not remote from it. Fast and far as they had rattled and clattered along the iron track, they might just as well, as regarded Hepzibah's mental images, have been passing up and down Pyncheon Street. With miles and miles of varied scenery between, there was no scene for her save the seven old gable-peaks, with their moss, and the tuft of weeds in one of the angles, and the shop-window, and a customer shaking the door, and compelling the little bell to jingle fiercely, but without disturbing Judge Pyncheon! This one old house was everywhere! It transported its great, lumbering bulk with more than railroad speed, and set itself phlegmatically down on whatever spot she glanced at. The quality of Hepzibah's mind was too unmalleable to take new impressions so readily as Clifford's. He had a winged nature; she was rather of the vegetable kind, and could hardly be kept long alive, if drawn up by the roots. Thus it happened that the relation heretofore existing between her brother and herself was changed. At home, she was his guardian; here, Clifford had become hers, and seemed to comprehend whatever belonged to their new position with a singular rapidity of intelligence. He had been startled into manhood and intellectual vigor; or, at least, into a condition that resembled them, though it might be both diseased and transitory. (17.15)
Hepzibah must now pay the price of the common stereotype that associates women with the home and its care. Now that she has been torn loose from the House of the Seven Gables, her whole sense of identity is shaken. She doesn't know what to do with herself. Meanwhile, Clifford, who has "a winged nature," is able to adapt more quickly to new circumstances. Hawthorne continues to describe their different responses in terms of gender: Clifford has now been "startled into manhood," so he's finally ready to take control (for a time at least). Clifford has gone from being Hepzibah's ward at home to the man in charge on the train.