Dr. Rebeccah Bechtold will speak about The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne for the Why Should I Read This? lecture series on Tuesday, June 30, 2026 at 7:00 p.m. at the KMUW Studios.
Most readers probably associate Nathaniel Hawthorne with Hester Prynne and her scarlet ‘A’; but Wichita State English professor Rebeccah Bechtold thinks a later Hawthorne character is also deserving of fame. She tells us why in today’s Why Should I Read This?
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables finds an unlikely heroine in Hepzibah Pyncheon. A reclusive spinster with a perpetual scowl, Hepzibah certainly lacks main character energy. Yet she is all that stands between her beloved brother Clifford and their ruthless cousin pJudge Pyncheon, who desires to divest the siblings of their ancestral home. In Hepzibah, Hawthorne offers a study of what it means to be poor, alone, and aging in the nineteenth century. Clifford may be correct when he tells his sister “We are ghosts!”; but Hepzibah refuses to write herself out of the story. She holds strong in a world that favors youth, beauty, and masculine power.
