In the novel The House of the Seven Gables, Hawthorne portrays Alice Pyncheon as a unique and compelling character, placing her in contrast with a story full of greed, lies and betrayal.  Hawthorne reveals her fantastic character to us in numerous uses of symbolism throughout the novel.  By painting a picture of a gentle yet proud woman, Hawthorne chooses to represent Alice’s impressive characteristics using images that come up repeatedly in his novel such as the nature and flowers in the garden as well as Alice’s Posies.  Hawthorne also makes reference to the Maule “mastery” and its power over Alice and the playing of the harpsichord during a Pyncheon death. All the symbols culminated above, lead to an in depth analysis of Alice Pyncheon’s character, her innocence, pride, beauty and mournful sorrow.
     According to Hawthorne, Alice had an uncanny resemblance to the flowers of the Pyncheon garden represented by her beauty and presence.  Just as flowers hold a purity and freedom in their appearance, Alice was described as a “lady that was born and set apart from the world’s vulgar mass by a certain gentle and cold stateliness” (178).  Her strong appearance, as Hawthorne states, was “combined of beauty, high, unsullied purity, and the preservative force of womanhood” (180).  Hawthorne shows that Alice represents the beauty of a flower as well as its scent when he says “the fragrance of her rich and delightful character still lingered . . . as a dried rosebud scents the drawer where it has withered and perished” (79).  Even after her death, the “scent” of Alice’s character still haunts the House of the Seven Gables with its beauty and tenderness like that of the flowers in the Pyncheon garden.
     Another aspect of the Pyncheon garden that symbolizes Alice’s character is the rosebush that she planted herself over two hundred years earlier.  Hawthorne describes the bush as “literally covered with a rare and very beautiful species of white rose” (68).  The white hue of the roses could no doubt represent the purity of Alice’s character and spirit. The rosebush radiant in full bloom mirrors the fact that Alice’s spirit is very much alive and vibrant despite her unfair death two centuries earlier.  Also, when Hawthorne states that “the whole rosebush looked as if it had been brought from Eden that very summer,” he shows the innocence of Alice’s spirit through his reference to the garden of Eden and her character’s place among the heavens above.  This rosebush in the Pyncheon garden symbolizes Alice’s innocence and purity as well as her connection to nature and the flowers that God himself created.
      Besides Alice’s connection to the nature in full bloom within the Pyncheon garden, Hawthorne makes several references to “Alice’s Posies” which bloom every summer on the roof of the House of the Seven Gables.  Hawthorne notes that these flowers did their “best to gladden it [the house] with tender beauty” in the same way that Alice’s tenderness does its best to dominate the gloom of the Pyncheon House (31).  Most notably, Alice’s Posies “were flaunting in rich beauty and full bloom . . . a mystic expression that something within the house was consummated” on the day that Holgrave and Phoebe unite their love for one another, therefore breaking the Maule curse (249).  The breaking of the curse and the blooming of Alice’s Posies are symbols of Alice’s happiness due to the union of Phoebe and Holgrave in marriage, her beauty as a character through the full bloom of her posies and her resolution as a spirit.
    In terms of the Maule “mastery”, the Maule power symbolizes the destruction of Alice’s pride and a mental break down that eventually leads to her death.  When Alice is confronted by Maule, she “put a woman’s might against a man’s might; a match not often equal on the part of woman” and places her pride on the line for the challenge against Maule’s power (180).  Even after Alice awakes without any recollection of the spell that had been placed upon her, “she reassumed an air of somewhat cold but gentle dignity . . . but there was a peculiar smile on the carpenter’s visage that stirred the native pride of the fair Alice” (184).  On the pivotal night of Maule’s bridal shower, poor Alice was summoned by Maule “to wait upon his bride” and “no longer proud kissed Maule’s wife, and went her way” (186).  That evening on the way home in the rain, Alice “in her gossamer white dress and satin slippers” fell ill to her bed leading to her demise.  Once again, Hawthorne uses white (the tint of her dress) to portray Alice’s innocence and purity as well as dressing her like an angel representing her death.  This shows that Alice’s pride is not the only thing stripped from her by the Maule “mastery” for by her early days as a maiden, it takes her life as well.
     Since Alice endured so much pain and sorrow in her short life, she remains in the House of the Seven Gables to play her harpsichord in times of any Pyncheon death.  “A great many times, she had been heard playing sadly and beautifully on the harpsichord” when a member of the Pyncheon race shook hands with death (79).  Hawthorne notes at the beginning of the novel that “human finger was hardly known to have touched the chords since the days of Alice Pyncheon” and the case “looked more like a coffin than anything else” (70).  The reason that Hawthorne may have chosen to describe the harpsichord as a coffin is to show that Alice represents the sorrow that arises when any one of the Pyncheon clan dies, and in her sorrow, she plays the harpsichord and sings mournfully.  When Hawthorne remarks that “it was so exquisitely mournful that nobody could bear to hear it played, unless when a great sorrow had made them know the still profounder sweetness of it,” he is showing that Alice represents the sorrow that accompanies death in the House of the Seven Gables.  Because of the grief and sorrow that Alice endured, she plays the harpsichord in order to appease and honor the death of any Pyncheon.
     The importance of the harpsichord that Alice played also symbolizes resolution and her character’s final happiness at the conclusion of the novel.  Before, the music from Alice’s harpsichord was only heard with the death of a Pyncheon family member.  However, at the end of the novel Hawthorne states that Uncle Venner “seemed to have heard a strain of music” coming from the House of the Seven Gables on the morning that all moved out of the house (277).  He “fancied that sweet Alice Pyncheon – after witnessing  . . . this bygone woe and this present happiness of her kindred mortals – had given one farewell touch of a spirit’s joy upon her harpsichord, as she floated heavenward from the House of the Seven Gables” (277).  In this case, the music played by Alice on her divine instrument symbolizes a resolution within Alice herself and a profound happiness for the union of Holgrave and Phoebe.  Ironically the harpsichord changes from being an omen of death to one of new life and happiness for both Alice and the rest of the Pyncheon clan. 
     Hawthorne chooses to end his novel on a note from Alice’s harpsichord off a new sheet of music for the Pyncheon family.  By using the nature of the garden to prolong the tenderness and purity of Alice’s character and spirit even after death, Hawthorne entices the reader to dig deeper into the character of Alice Pyncheon and search for the symbols present that shape her undying character.  With her loss of pride to the Maule “mastery” and the sorrow expressed through her untimely and unnecessary death, there is no question as to why Alice’s harpsichord plays such a mournful tune throughout the novel.  It is only in the end that her life and her happiness are rewarded and her long awaiting spirit is drawn towards the heavens to have her spirit rest in peace.

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