How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"It is handsome!—it is very beautiful!" said Phoebe admiringly. "It is as sweet a face as a man's can be, or ought to be. It has something of a child's expression, – and yet not childish, – only one feels so very kindly towards him! He ought never to suffer anything. One would bear much for the sake of sparing him toil or sorrow. Who is it, Cousin Hepzibah?" (5.21)
Hawthorne's depiction of Clifford Pyncheon is interestingly androgynous. Let's think about how Phoebe describes his portrait. Looking at his face, she immediately decides that "he ought never to suffer anything." This suggests that Clifford is delicate and not strong enough to look after himself, which sounds a lot like Hepzibah's stereotypes of "ladyhood." (Ladies are not supposed to be strong or self-sufficient.) We learn later that Clifford loves beauty, which Hawthorne also strongly links to women. Clifford's face is "as sweet a face as a man's can be," and "beautiful" as well – again, not as obviously masculine as, say, Judge Pyncheon's "imperious" (6.17) daguerreotype (which we analyze further in "Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory"). Clifford and Judge Pyncheon are total opposites. Where Clifford is weak, Judge Pyncheon is strong. Where Clifford loves beauty, Judge Pyncheon loves money. And where Clifford's portrait is somewhat effeminate, Judge Pyncheon's is stern and masculine.
Quote #5
To be brief, besides Hepzibah's disadvantages of person, there was an uncouthness pervading all her deeds; a clumsy something, that could but ill adapt itself for use, and not at all for ornament. She was a grief to Clifford, and she knew it. In this extremity, the antiquated virgin turned to Phoebe. No grovelling jealousy was in her heart. Had it pleased Heaven to crown the heroic fidelity of her life by making her personally the medium of Clifford's happiness, it would have rewarded her for all the past, by a joy with no bright tints, indeed, but deep and true, and worth a thousand gayer ecstasies. This could not be. She therefore turned to Phoebe, and resigned the task into the young girl's hands. The latter took it up cheerfully, as she did everything, but with no sense of a mission to perform, and succeeding all the better for that same simplicity. (9.6)
The plot point that Hawthorne builds out of Hepzibah's ugliness reveals some unpleasant aspects of the his conception of femininity. Clifford cannot stand to look at his adoring sister, so she leaves his care to pretty young Phoebe. Phoebe is an ideal woman not only because she makes housekeeping look easy and keeps everything pleasant, but also because of her youth and beauty.
Now, Hawthorne certainly expresses sympathy for poor Hepzibah's situation. But that doesn't change the troubling conclusion that an unattractive woman is somehow less of a woman. Clifford's distaste for Hepzibah appears to be an extreme version of something the narrator himself feels, with all of his dismissive descriptions of Hepzibah's "antiquated [virginity]." By contrast, Judge Pyncheon's appearance is unsettling because it reveals the cruelty of his character. His ugliness never makes him less of a man – on the contrary, he appears a lot manlier than Clifford. So why should prettiness be such a cornerstone of female identity?
Quote #6
There was something very beautiful in the relation that grew up between this pair, so closely and constantly linked together, yet with such a waste of gloomy and mysterious years from his birthday to hers. On Clifford's part it was the feeling of a man naturally endowed with the liveliest sensibility to feminine influence, but who had never quaffed the cup of passionate love, and knew that it was now too late. He knew it, with the instinctive delicacy that had survived his intellectual decay. Thus, his sentiment for Phoebe, without being paternal, was not less chaste than if she had been his daughter. He was a man, it is true, and recognized her as a woman. She was his only representative of womankind. He took unfailing note of every charm that appertained to her sex, and saw the ripeness of her lips, and the virginal development of her bosom. All her little womanly ways, budding out of her like blossoms on a young fruit-tree, had their effect on him, and sometimes caused his very heart to tingle with the keenest thrills of pleasure. At such moments, – for the effect was seldom more than momentary, – the half-torpid man would be full of harmonious life, just as a long-silent harp is full of sound, when the musician's fingers sweep across it. But, after all, it seemed rather a perception, or a sympathy, than a sentiment belonging to himself as an individual. (9.14)
Hawthorne doesn't want us to get the wrong idea – he takes care to emphasize that Clifford's feeling for Phoebe is "not less chaste than if she had been his daughter." In other words, this isn't the sexual attraction of an old dude for a hot young lady. Instead, Clifford is attached to Phoebe for symbolic reasons. He recognizes in the abstract that she is an ideal woman, and that he might once have fallen in love with her. What are some reasons why Hawthorne might stop the narrative to emphasize the asexual nature of Clifford's love for Phoebe? Do you find this believable?