Many scholars and critics have commented upon the significant role of women in Nathaniel Hawthorne's life and work. Some have discussed the formative role that women played in Hawthorne's emergence as a writer and how this influences his treatment of female characters. Others explore the sympathetic view that Hawthorne often has toward female characters, the ways that he aligns them with arts and domesticity, and the ways that women in Hawthorne's fiction are often restricted by the values of the social world they inhabit.

General Commentary

Criticism Related to Women in Hawthorne's Life and Hawthorne's View of Women
In her lecture "Hawthorne and 'the sphere of ordinary womanhood'," Melinda Ponder addresses Hawthorne's youth and the important roles that women had in his development. This excerpt highlights that role.
Excerpt from his lecture "The Meaning of Hawthorne's Women" in which Richard Millington highlights Hawthorne's sympathetic views toward his female characters.

Criticism Related to Hepzibah

Excerpts Related to Family Themes and Hawthorne's Fiction: The Tenacious Web by Gloria C. Erlich that points to models based on himself and his mother, Elizabeth Hathorne, who both chose to isolate themselves from the world. Thus, he had real models to help capture Hepzibah's self-imposed isolation from society. (courtesy of Rutgers University Press)
Excerpts from essay by John L. Idol, Jr. in Hawthorne and Women edited by Idol and Melinda Ponder on Mary Russell Mitford's sympathetic response to Hepzibah (courtesy of University of Massachusetts Press)
Excerpt from her lecture "Hawthorne and 'the sphere of ordinary womanhood'," in which Melinda Ponder notes that Hawthorne comments on the changing roles for women in his time through the contrasts between Hepzibah and Phoebe, particularly through Hepzibah's aristocratic pretensions.
Excerpts from essay by Melissa Pennell in Hawthorne and Women edited by John L. Idol, Jr. and Melinda Ponder that compares Mary Wilkins Freeman's character to Hepzibah. Like Hepzibah, Freeman's female characters are genteel women struggling to achieve self-worth in a changing society. (courtesy of University of Massachusetts Press)

Criticism related to Phoebe

Excerpts from an essay "The Chief Employ of Her Life ", from Hawthorne and Women edited by John L. Idol and Melinda Ponder in which Luanne Jenkins Hurst cites some of Sophia Hawthorne's responses to The House of the Seven Gables, especially to Phoebe's character. (courtesy of University of Massachusetts Press)
Excerpt from his lecture "Illustrations of The House of the Seven Gables: A Help or Hindrance?" (video) in which Dr. John L. Idol, Jr. comments that illustrators' interpretations of Phoebe's character tend to emphasize the "sunny" aspects of her character.
Excerpt from his lecture "The Meaning of Hawthorne's Women" in which Richard Millington considers the parallel between Hawthorne's experiences and the gender relations he depicts between Phoebe and Holgrave.
An excerpt from the biography Nathaniel Hawthorne in his Times in which James Mellow comments on both Phoebe's connection to Sophia Hawthorne and on her influence over the character Holgrave.
Excerpt from The Student Companion to Nathaniel Hawthorne by Melissa McFarland Pennell in which she suggests that Hawthorne anticipated the criticism leveled against Phoebe's character. (courtesy of Greenwood Press)

Criticism related to Alice

Excerpt from The Student Companion to Nathaniel Hawthorne by Melissa McFarland Pennell in which she outlines Alice's role within the novel. (courtesy of Greenwood Press)

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