My Kinsman, Major Molineux PDF

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Sunday, August 30

My Kinsman, Major Molineux Summary ● “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” takes place during a single night, as an 18-year-old, country-bred man named Robin arrives by ferry in Massachusetts Bay, where he hopes to “begin in the world” with the help of his wealthy and eminent cousin, Major Molineux. ● Unable to find a house befitting the imagined grandeur of his “kinsman,” Molineux, Robin encounters an old man, who loudly rebukes and threatens him, much to the amusement of the patrons and employees of a nearby barber shop. ● Surprised at his cold reception in Massachusetts, Robin continues to roam the streets and back alleys of the town, hungry and dazed. ● He hopes to run into Molineux as he wanders, but only encounters crowds of young people ● Robin hears a trumpet and a “wild and confused laughter” coming from an adjacent street and wonders aloud whether they should join the merrymaking. ● At the center of the crowd, lit by torches that blaze so brightly that “the moon shone out like day” and attended by trumpets that “vomited a horrid breath,” is an uncovered cart where Molineux himself sits captive, in “tar-and-feathery dignity.” ● He trembles inside the cart and he meets Robin’s gaze and recognizes Robin where he stands “witnessing the foul disgrace of a head grown gray in honor.” Overcome by both pity and terror, Robin feels his legs tremble. Reflecting on his adventures that night, the crowd with their torches, the air of “tremendous ridicule,” and “the spectre of his kinsman reviled by that great multitude,” Robin experiences a “sort of mental inebriety.” ● All the various townspeople Robin has met so far reappear: the night watchman rubs his eyes and seems to enjoy Robin’s shock; the “housekeeper” with the scarlet petticoat laughs and pinches Robin’s arm while fixing him with her “saucy eye” Analysis ● Set before the American Revolution, the colonists are restless with all manner of British rule, an antipathy that extends to outcry over foreign-appointed governors. ● Roughly a generation before the Boston Massacre ignites the American Revolution, Massachusetts is already a powder keg, as the tension between the Americans and the British is palpable at this point. ● Hawthorne continues to set the stage, as his narrator captures the mood of widespread discontent of a century ago (making the date of these events circa 1732, as Hawthorne wrote “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” in 1832). The year of George Washington’s birth, 1732 is well before the colonists organize against the British.

● Instead, there is a mood of anarchy and grassroots resistance, as the colonies become resentful of their British-appointed leaders....