In this essay, I will explore how multi-layered acts of reading helpdescribe the moral and aesthetic intricacy in The House of the Seven Gablesby Nathaniel Hawthorne. The modes of reading and interpretation presentedin the text instruct the reader how to read the text and reflect the author’swish how his romance and romances in general should be read by his idealreader. In short, The House of the Seven Gables is a romance about how weshould read romance.Due to its abrupt happy-ending plot, its conventional settings and itssentimental tone, Seven Gables invites the most simplistic reading and is themost morally didactic of the four romances; thus, Seven Gables serves as anexcellent case study to demonstrate how Hawthorne complicates our readingactivity in his fictions. In order to clarify what I mean by “the multi-layeredacts of reading,” I will discuss how different layers of reading activities areinterwoven in the text. Here I will suggest that Hawthorne is trying to posita new mode of reading that best facilitates the new genre of “romance.”Second, related to the new mode of reading that Hawthorne proposes, Iwill inquire into the roles that mirror imagery, daguerreotypy and portraitpainting serve in the romance. Not only do these add a touch of modernityto the romance, they are closely related to the acts of reading in the book.Finally, I will discuss the link between the acts of sympathetic reading andHawthorne’s idea of romance and morality.
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