The contrast between light and dark imagery is a motif in the novel. In Chapter 5, when Phoebe first wakes up in the House of the Seven Gables, her very presence brings light to an otherwise dark and gloomy house:
There were curtains to Phoebe’s bed; a dark, antique canopy, and ponderous festoons of a stuff which had been rich, and even magnificent, in its time; but which now brooded over the girl like a cloud, making a night in that one corner [...]. The morning light, however, soon stole into the aperture at the foot of the bed, betwixt those faded curtains. Finding the new guest there—with a bloom on her cheeks like the morning’s own, and a gentle stir of departing slumber in her limbs, as when an early breeze moves the foliage—the dawn kissed her brow.
Phoebe's bed, a fixture of the house, has curtains and a "dark, antique canopy" that lends less opulence than gloom to the bed. It "broods" above her "like a cloud, making night in that one corner" even in the morning. The atmosphere of the house where Hepzibah has been living mostly alone for years is like that of a stormy day, when clouds block out the light and make it seem like nighttime at all hours. Phoebe does not just represent light herself; furthermore, she seems to pull light toward her. Lying under the dark canopy, she attracts the morning light. It "steals" in through a small opening in the curtains and "finds" her there, as though it has been looking for her since she disappeared into the house. Despite the emotional and physical darkness of the house, Phoebe still manages to awake "with a bloom on her cheeks...and a gentle stir" as though she is a leaf fluttering in the wind. She brings the outside world into the House of the Seven Gables for the first time in years and makes it a little brighter and more breathable inside.
This is not the only instance in which Phoebe functions like a ray of light penetrating the darkest corners of the house. She is described as the "May" to Hepzibah's "November," and she truly seems to turn the seasons within the house. Still, certain corners of the house remain darker than it seems they ought to, and Phoebe herself begins to shine less brightly the longer she is there. Phoebe's light represents the promise of a future Pyncheon family that has unburdened itself from the sins of its past. The darkness of the house, meanwhile, represents the stubbornness of the stain those sins have left. Only by shedding real light on the past sins (uncovering the truth of Uncle Jaffrey's death, discovering the deed for the land in Maine, and marrying into the Maule family they once stole from) can the Pyncheons lighten up their lives for good.
A motif in the novel is suggestive images of rot, decay, and corpses. For example, in Chapter 6, Hawthorne describes the garden around Maule's well:
The black, rich soil had fed itself with the decay of a long period of time; such as fallen leaves, the petals of flowers, and the stalks and seed vessels of vagrant and lawless plants, more useful after their death than ever while flaunting in the sun. The evil of these departed years would naturally have sprung up again, in such rank weeds (symbolic of the transmitted vices of society) as are always prone to root themselves about human dwellings.
This is not a simple description of a garden full of dead plants. Rather, Hawthorne emphasizes how plants have decomposed into their various parts, and how those parts have "fed" the "black, rich soil" to make it more fertile for years to come. Uncultivated weeds ("vagrant and lawless plants") have their greatest use for this soil after they die and break down into fertilizer. Utility to the "black, rich soil" does not necessarily mean that these plants are being put to use for good. In fact, Hawthorne goes on to write that the plants help "the evil of these departed years" spring up with new life, like more unwanted but unchecked weeds.
Hawthorne seems to be getting at something oddly specific through this intense nature imagery. He writes that these "rank weeds" are "symbolic of the transmitted vices of society." What he means becomes clearer through other instances of the motif. For instance, in Chapter 12, Holgrave tells Phoebe:
Whatever we seek to do, of our own free motion, a dead man’s icy hand obstructs us! Turn our eyes to what point we may, a dead man’s white, immitigable face encounters them, and freezes our very heart!
Here is an image of a corpse's "icy hand" reaching out of its grave to stop living people from exercising free will. Even when we look in the direction we want to go, Holgrave claims, we see the image of a dead man's face and can no longer imagine going in that direction. These images were not uncommon in political writing during the 18th and 19th centuries, when many nations were rethinking the extent to which dead leaders should have a say over government in the present. To what extent should someone who is no longer alive be able to dictate the laws by which their descendants live? In this context, the dead garden imagery of Chapter 6 turns into a horrifying scene in which the ground is poisoned by the endlessly recycled bad ideas of dead people. Hawthorne does not imagine, as Holgrave does, that it is possible to wholly reject the dead. He uses images of rot, decay, and corpses to reckon with the difficulty of living in the present when the ground on which our institutions sit (both literally and figuratively) is full of dead people and dead ideas that can't be rooted out.
A motif in the novel is suggestive images of rot, decay, and corpses. For example, in Chapter 6, Hawthorne describes the garden around Maule's well:
The black, rich soil had fed itself with the decay of a long period of time; such as fallen leaves, the petals of flowers, and the stalks and seed vessels of vagrant and lawless plants, more useful after their death than ever while flaunting in the sun. The evil of these departed years would naturally have sprung up again, in such rank weeds (symbolic of the transmitted vices of society) as are always prone to root themselves about human dwellings.
This is not a simple description of a garden full of dead plants. Rather, Hawthorne emphasizes how plants have decomposed into their various parts, and how those parts have "fed" the "black, rich soil" to make it more fertile for years to come. Uncultivated weeds ("vagrant and lawless plants") have their greatest use for this soil after they die and break down into fertilizer. Utility to the "black, rich soil" does not necessarily mean that these plants are being put to use for good. In fact, Hawthorne goes on to write that the plants help "the evil of these departed years" spring up with new life, like more unwanted but unchecked weeds.
Hawthorne seems to be getting at something oddly specific through this intense nature imagery. He writes that these "rank weeds" are "symbolic of the transmitted vices of society." What he means becomes clearer through other instances of the motif. For instance, in Chapter 12, Holgrave tells Phoebe:
Whatever we seek to do, of our own free motion, a dead man’s icy hand obstructs us! Turn our eyes to what point we may, a dead man’s white, immitigable face encounters them, and freezes our very heart!
Here is an image of a corpse's "icy hand" reaching out of its grave to stop living people from exercising free will. Even when we look in the direction we want to go, Holgrave claims, we see the image of a dead man's face and can no longer imagine going in that direction. These images were not uncommon in political writing during the 18th and 19th centuries, when many nations were rethinking the extent to which dead leaders should have a say over government in the present. To what extent should someone who is no longer alive be able to dictate the laws by which their descendants live? In this context, the dead garden imagery of Chapter 6 turns into a horrifying scene in which the ground is poisoned by the endlessly recycled bad ideas of dead people. Hawthorne does not imagine, as Holgrave does, that it is possible to wholly reject the dead. He uses images of rot, decay, and corpses to reckon with the difficulty of living in the present when the ground on which our institutions sit (both literally and figuratively) is full of dead people and dead ideas that can't be rooted out.
In Chapter 19, Phoebe returns to the House of the Seven Gables after, unbeknownst to her, Clifford and Hepzibah have fled and left Judge Pyncheon's corpse behind. When she approaches, some of the imagery the narrator uses to describe the house foreshadows the ending of the book:
Maule’s well had overflowed its stone border, and made a pool of formidable breadth in that corner of the garden.
The well has overflowed because it has been storming for days. But superstition among the Pyncheons and the Maules is that the water of the well is cursed. Holgrave has previously advised Phoebe not to let the water touch her, so it seems like a bad sign that the water has overflowed. The "pool of formidable breadth" is daunting not just because it would be hard to hop across it but because the cursed water is threatening to flow uncontained over the entire property.
For generations, Maule's well has threatened the Pyncheons, but the stone border has always kept the water confined to a small part of the property. By keeping Maule's curse at bay, the Pyncheons have been able to cling to the House of the Seven Gables, even if there is some question as to whether they have stolen the property from the Maules. Each successive generation of Pyncheons inherits the threat of the Maule family, but it is a contained threat. The "formidable pool of water" foreshadows the discovery Phoebe is about to make: the Pyncheons at last seem to have been wiped out by the curse. Judge Pyncheon has died in the strange and bloody way many of his forebears also have. Clifford and Hepzibah have taken flight. As a woman, Phoebe might be able to live in the house if granted the right by its owner. But women's legal right to own property was in its infancy at the time Hawthorne was writing; Phoebe would probably need a male relative to control the property, and practically all her known male Pyncheon relatives except Clifford (including her father) have died. Maule has at last "flooded" the Pyncheons out of the house they were never supposed to have.
But the way the Pyncheon property has been overtaken by the water in Maule's well also foreshadows something happier. As Phoebe is soon to find out, Holgrave is inside the house still, and he is a descendant of Maule. It is not the dead Maule at all who has taken over the property, but rather Holgrave. When Phoebe and Holgrave profess their love for one another, it becomes clear that the well has not cursed the Pyncheons away from the House of the Seven Gables. Instead, the waters have at last cleansed the land of past sins. Phoebe and Holgrave's union is thus a metaphorical baptism for both of these families: united, they must no longer be at one another's throats for all eternity.
