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Free Analysis Essay on Judge Pyncheon

Uploaded by nicolehein35 on Dec 09, 2012


Judge Pyncheon Essay
In the passage from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of Seven Gables, the great Judge Pyncheon is perceived by his town’s people to be the complete pinnacle of kindness, morality, justice and knowledge. Subsequently, it is revealed to the reader that this persona is a mere “face” to satisfy “public opinion”. Through diction, repetition, understatement and a satirical tone, the narrator exposes the judge to be a phony; the narrator divulges that the Judge has many “dark traits” and “questionable deeds” which he hides behind his costume of good stature in the community.
From the very beginning of the passage, the narrator establishes a satirical, and mocking tone when describing Judge Pyncheon in a good light. “There was enough of splendid rubbish in his life to cover up and paralyze a more active and subtle conscience than the judge was ever troubled with”. He then goes on to spew out a meaningless list of deeds, responsibilities and actions, which Judge Pyncheon actively accomplishes while on the bench. This rant, which consumes an entire eighteen lines of the passage, only skims the surface of Judge Pyncheon’s actions and fails to include any of the good deeds he accomplishes without his robe on; his robe is a metaphorical “costume” which triggers the switch from a wrong doer, obsessed with money and materials, into a respectable role model of society. The list itself starts out with deeds that are meaningful and significant but gets more and more frivolous as the list continues; the reader, by this point, is bored and under impressed by the catalog of so called “credentials”, because the empty and joking conclusion to the list undermines any good qualities stated in the beginning.
The town’s people fail to see Judge Pyncheon’s personality as a result of his actions, and instead, make their judgments of the man based off of his grinning, amicable face. Mirrors repeatedly evoke a sense of superficiality and feigned character. “What room could possibly be found for darker traits, in a portrait made up of lineaments like these! This proper face was what he beheld in the looking-glass.” The Judge takes advantage of his exterior and only shows the people around him what they wanted to see. Mirrors unravel a main theme of the passage that looks are deceiving. A mirror only reveals the surface of the face looking into it, but fails to pry deeper into...

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Uploaded by:   nicolehein35

Date:   12/09/2012

Category:   Reflection

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Views:   1294

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