Abstract:

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s description of a New England mansion in The House of the Seven Gables (1851) relies on well-established gothic tropes that ghost certain environmental incidents and characters’ reactions to them. In turn, natural encroachment on human structures seems an otherworldly and unlikely phenomenon. This rhetorical move eases tension in stories where buildings symbolize U.S. success at mastering the landscape but also reveals architecture’s constant vulnerability to outdoor elements. This article examines Hawthorne’s depictions of decay to argue that widespread and resilient fungi, most usually mold, underscore human anxieties about the environment lurking amid portrayals of gothic structures like the famed seven-gabled house. Conditions of rot suggest the impermanence of buildings and, by extension, the limits of conquering the natural world, exhibiting an ecological reality that appears less troubling when represented through ghastly but impossible incidents. In Hawthorne’s novel, the haunting presence of fungal forms in materials, both inside the house and in the surrounding area, suggests failed ambitions and a passing socioeconomic status, so that the story transforms decay into spectral manifestation. An ecogothic reading thus highlights how sometimes unseen biological realities, such as conditions for fungal growth, enhance supernatural and existential horrors while also distracting from concerns about nature’s long-term damaging of human structures like houses. Like the mold it studies, this essay treats the psychology of domestic spaces (a major Hawthornean theme) as permeable by showing that the novel’s gloomy atmosphere, ghostly hauntings, alleged curses, and other fantastical events are enhanced by the presence of a veiled ecological catalyst.

摘要：

纳撒尼尔·霍桑在《七个山墙的房子》 （1851 年）中对新英格兰豪宅的描述依赖于公认的哥特式比喻，这些比喻隐喻了某些环境事件和人物对此的反应。反过来，自然对人体结构的侵蚀似乎是一种超凡脱俗且不太可能发生的现象。这种修辞手法缓解了故事中的紧张气氛，其中的建筑象征着美国在掌控景观方面的成功，但也揭示了建筑对室外因素的持续脆弱性。本文研究了霍桑对腐烂的描述，认为广泛存在且有弹性的真菌（通常是霉菌）强调了人类对潜伏在哥特式建筑（如著名的七山墙房屋）描绘中的环境的焦虑。腐烂的情况表明了建筑物的无常性，进而表明了征服自然世界的极限，展示了一种生态现实，当通过可怕但不可能的事件来表现时，这种现实似乎不那么令人不安。在霍桑的小说中，房屋内部和周边地区材料中令人难以忘怀的真菌形式表明了失败的野心和过去的社会经济地位，因此故事将腐烂转化为幽灵的表现。因此，生态哥特式的解读强调了有时看不见的生物现实（例如真菌生长的条件）如何增强超自然和存在的恐怖，同时也分散了人们对自然对房屋等人类结构的长期破坏的担忧。就像它所研究的霉菌一样，本文将家庭空间的心理（霍桑的一个主要主题）视为可渗透的，通过表明小说的阴郁气氛、幽灵出没、所谓的诅咒和其他奇幻事件因一种隐蔽的生态催化剂的存在而得到增强。 。