Abstract:The House of the Seven Gables constantly seems, on the surface, to separate settler civilization from North American Nature, from the obsession with cultivating garden space to the fear of moral decay within white American homes and lineages. However, a closer look at the actions and presence of Nature in the novel reveals a complex network of agential beings that are not so controllable or conquerable. I argue that the novel’s spectral conflict is a material conflict between Nature and settler institutions, a… Show more
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