Change is Inevitable

It becomes very obvious why The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne was selected as a piece of reading of this class. Through the first seven chapters, one can see several instances related to such things as narrative, technology, history and most of all change. Beings that this story is based during a time of tremendous change in the American world, one is able to observe many parallels between America at the time, and the changing of events throughout the story. Although the novel is filled with different aspects of change, what actually caught my attention first was the resistance to change by most of the characters, specifically Colonel Pyncheon.

"Endowed with common sense, as massive and hard as blocks of granite, fastened together by stern rigidity of purpose, as with iron clamps, he followed out his original design, probably without so much as imagining an objection to it, On the score of delicacy, or any scrupulousness which a finer sensibility might have taught him, the Colonel, like most of his breed and generation, was impenetrable."

These words describing the Colonel help us understand the first chapter of the book. We learn that his family has become forever cursed after his false accusations of witchcraft upon Matthew Maule. By building his house on the stolen land, the Colonel has eternally doomed his family. This idea of stubbornness to change is not only symbolic within the book but also helps the reader understand the time period that these characters are living in. Change came so rapidly at this time in history that it took most people by surprise, and many were hesitant to adjust. Hawthorne's depictions of this anxiety to change are much more intense than one would encounter today, or at least I would hope so. Hawthorne's use of eerie language definitely lets the reader know that the Colonel's wrong doings will definitely not go unpunished, and that his family too will suffer for a very long time.

In the real world today, people might experience a similar stubbornness or anxiety to change. Every person has their different reasons, some are probably more in depth than others but just like everything else in the world, it's all relative. Personally, I haven't experienced any life threatening curses like that of the Pyncheon family; however I did encounter a fairly important life change at a very young age.

As my final years of elementary school concluded, my life was great. Good friends, amazing family life, and not a worry in the world. That was until one day it all came crashing down. I had always looked up to my parents, thought they were the greatest people in the world, and that nothing could come between them. Wow, was I wrong. It was a few weeks after hearing them fight every night, that they told me the life changing news. They were getting divorced. I don't think words can describe the emotions that went through my mind for the next few days, so I won't even begin to try. More importantly, everything I ever knew was about to change. Did I want this to happen? Absolutely not. Did I have a choice. No. I fought and I fought to keep my lifestyle the same, clinging to the life I used to have. After months of depressed thoughts and sleepless nights, I finally realized that things would have to change forever.

I think it is a fair statement to say that most people like to be comfortable. Change usually fluctuates people's comforts zones. However, some changes are inevitable and have to be debt with accordingly. In the case of Colonel Pyncheon his refusal to change leads, to what most of us would agree on, a very harsh consequence for not only himself, but his entire family. Most changes in the real world today don't have those types of consequences, but none the less change is and will always be just around the corner.