Robeson is a freelance writer with a master's degree in English. In this essay, Robeson explores the ambiguous views expressed in the novel about the aristocracy and the working classes.

Class distinctions permeate The House of the Seven Gables. The story commences with an immediate contrast between the wealthy Colonel Pyncheon and the farmer, Matthew Maule. Later, at Colonel Pyncheon's housewarming party, guests are either ushered into the kitchen or into the home's more stately rooms depending on "the high or low degree" of each person. Through these early images, readers have an immediate sense that issues of social class are one of Hawthorne's central themes. In that the novel is considered to reflect much of Hawthorne's own life, one must wonder to what degree his views about the aristocracy and the working classes are embedded within the story.

On the one hand, one might readily conclude...