The House Of Seven Gables Rhetorical Analysis

In the passage from The House of Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the arrangement, ordering, grouping, and placement of words to form phrases, clauses, and sentences works to strengthen the argument of the narrator. By employing his many syntactic dexterities, the narrator aims to persuade the audience that Judge Pyncheon is guilty. Through his use of syntax, tone, diction, and characterization, The narrator persuades the reader to assume the true nature of Judge Pyncheon. Hawthorne begins the passage with an exclamatory infinitive fragment. This sentence arrives out of nowhere, no previously stated explanation given, and exists to draw attention to a “tran of remark” made about Judge Pyncheon. Beginning the passage with an incomplete

The Narrator sets up a scornful yet deserving tone by adding that he recounts the following statements, "(without, in the least, imputing crime to a personage of his eminent respectability)", letting on that he might be doubtful of Pyncheon’s innocence. However, the narrator's sarcasm might have been disregarded if not for the use of the oxymoron, “splendid rubbish”, which raises suspicion to the polysyndetic coordination that directly follows. The narrator begins the list with Pyncheon’s contributions, “character”, and “integrity” displayed by positions he’d held, but as the list drones on it becomes more about irrelevant traits, such as Pynchon “confining [his] durnal [consumption of] old Sherry wine” “since the last outbreak of gout”. This remark would have, perhaps, came across as less ridiculous if the mocking tone ended there, but instead it is followed by a characterizing description of “the snowy whiteness of his linen, the polish of his boots, the handsomeness of his gold-headed cane, the square and roomy fashion of his coat, and the fineness of its material, and, in general, the studied propriety of his dress and equipment”. This imagery paints Judge Pyncheon as a wealthy and self absorbed man who in extremely concerned with how he is viewed by

By connecting the narrator's strategic sentence configurations to his transparent satire observed throughout the passage, readers can only assume that Judge Pyncheon has finally been judged according to the reality of his actions, rather than his external appearance. The fact that the Narrator's entire argument appears to be on the side of Judge Pyncheon, alludes to the fact that the underlying nature of people can, at times, be the complete opposite of what they project onto