My Kinsman, Major Molineux: Initiation and Ambiguity

Plot Summary and Narrative Frame. An 18-year-old youth named Robin journeys from his home in the country to a city (perhaps Boston), where he hopes to profit from his contact with Major Molineux, a wealthy and powerful relative who had once taken an interest in Robin’s future. While searching for Molineux’s house, however, Robin encounters a series of often hostile and sarcastic Bostonians, who laugh whenever Molineux’s name is mentioned and who refuse to offer Robin any assistance. As Robin—hungry, tired, and frustrated—sits on the steps of a church, he hears a noisy procession approaching, and in the midst of the mob he sees Major Molineux—tarred, feathered, and mocked by the unruly crowd. Although Robin himself briefly joins in the general laughter, he quickly grows disillusioned by the spectacle and by his journey to the city.

Hawthorne’s Fictional Mode: Allegory, Ambiguity, and Suspense. This story is typical of Hawthorne’s fiction in many ways. It is set in the New England past; its heavy emphasis on allegory and symbolism makes it seem something other than a merely realistic account of mundane events; it features characters and physical settings that are obviously meant to be suggestive; yet the ultimate meanings of the work are ambiguous and mysterious. The tone of the story is generally somber and gloomy (although it is lightened occasionally by literal laughter, touches of comedy, and hints of sarcasm and irony); the meanings of the plot, like the motives of the characters, are shrouded in uncertainty; and thus the story achieves an effect of confusion and suspense.

By the time readers reach the end of the story, they will often have felt as mystified as Robin does, and indeed part of the power of the work results from the way Hawthorne continually postpones and delays the crucial, final revelation. That revelation itself provokes as many ambivalent and puzzled reactions in readers as it does in Robin himself, and for the central character as well as for Hawthorne’s audience, the story ends on a note of perplexity and ambiguity.

Coming-of-Age Archetype and Psychological Reading. Hawthorne’s tale has often been read as a “coming-of-age” story—one of the most common fictional plots. In such tales an inexperienced character (often a young man) leaves the secure, familiar place where he has grown up (usually surrounded by supportive family and friends) in order to venture off into strange territories where he encounters new and often bewildering experiences, including personalities who are sometimes threatening and situations that are often highly tempting. In the course of confronting these dangers and temptations, he often makes false assumptions and crucial mistakes and frequently feels bewildered and confused, but by the end of such tales the protagonist has usually also learned some valuable lessons about life, about other people, and about himself.

He has undergone various rites of passage; he has experienced a process of initiation; and as a result of his experiences he has usually emerged as wiser and more mature but also as less innocent and naive. Obviously Hawthorne’s story conforms closely to this archetypal pattern, and Robin is in some ways a symbolic “Everyman” figure whose painful initiation into the often-disillusioning facts of life is a process with which most readers will be able to identify.

Political and Historical Interpretation. However, in addition to being read in this broadly psychological way, the story has been interpreted in more narrowly political and historical terms. Hawthorne clearly invites such a reading by emphasizing topical factors in the story’s first paragraph. Readers who emphasize the historical and political dimensions of the tale often see Robin as a symbol of colonial New England or as representing a youthful, developing America—an immature but growing country that had to work out its proper relationship with its British overlords, here symbolized by Major Molineux.

From his extensive reading in colonial history, Hawthorne knew that the 18th century was often a time of enormous tension between the restive colonists and the British authorities; the revolution that finally resulted in the birth of a new nation was preceded by decades of rebellious and often violent outbursts, especially after the colonists lost their earlier rights to elect their governors and instead had governors imposed upon them by the British Crown. According to this kind of political interpretation, Robin’s eventual disillusionment with the relative whom he once respected (and from whom he had once hoped so much) parallels the maturation and growing cynicism of the American colonists, while the rebellion that Robin witnesses at the end of the tale obviously foreshadows the American Revolution itself.

Patriotism, Colonial Portrayal, and Moral Ambiguity. Although this political reading of the story seems almost undeniable, Hawthorne nevertheless can hardly be accused of simple-minded patriotism; the story is anything but an exercise in jingoistic propaganda. The colonists are hardly presented in entirely attractive ways; they often seem bitter, cold, calculating, and misanthropic, and when the major finally appears near the very end of the tale, he can partly be viewed as a figure to be pitied as well as derided. Presumably the colonists feel entirely justified in having tarred and feathered him and in parading him through the streets, but, if so, the story certainly never makes entirely clear the crimes of which he is guilty. As so often in Hawthorne’s writings, the “moral” (if there is one) is darkly ambiguous. The tale seems to invite a moral response, but we can never be quite sure what kind of response is expected.

Robin’s Laughter and the Perplexing Climax. Perhaps the most perplexing aspect of the entire tale involves Robin’s own laughter when he finally sees his tormented kinsman. As Hawthorne describes the chortling mob, he reports that the “contagion was spreading among the multitude when, all at once, it seized upon Robin, and he sent forth a shout of laughter that echoed through the street; every man shook his sides, every man emptied his lungs, but Robin’s shout was the loudest there” (Tales 17). The laughter here is described (with Hawthorne’s typical sense of paradox) as almost a kind of infection or sickness, and Robin’s participation in it almost seems involuntary (since he is “seized upon” by the “contagion”).

How do we explain his laughter? Is it a sign that he has freed himself, in a healthy way, from the influence of his “kinsman”? Or is it a sign that he has capitulated to the influence of the mob? Is he laughing at the major, at the crowd, or perhaps at his own earlier foolishness and naïveté? Is his laughter a laugh of genuine joy or of dark disillusionment? Hawthorne, characteristically, leaves the matter unclear; readers are not given a neat and tidy final “moral” but are given, instead, a good excuse to ponder and reflect.

For Discussion or Writing.
1.Compare and contrast this tale with Hawthorne’s story “Young Goodman Brown.” In particular, discuss the use of journeys in both tales, the emphasis on young men’s facing strange and disorienting experiences, and the moods of final disillusionment. Compare and contrast the settings of both works (the town in one tale and the forest in the other); discuss the ways women are presented in both works; and discuss the political dimensions of each text.