The tone of “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” is somber and dark. The narrator expresses little concern for the naïve Robin as he navigates the frightening streets of Boston, instead seeking to amplify the grotesque and haunting elements of the story. Take the following passage, for example, in which the narrator describes the horned man’s terrifying face:
Robin gazed with dismay and astonishment, on the unprecedented physiognomy of the speaker. The forehead with its double prominence, the broad-hooked nose, the shaggy eyebrows, and fiery eyes. […] One side of the face blazed of an intense red, while the other was black as midnight, the division line being in the broad bridge of the nose; and a mouth, which seemed to extend from ear to ear, was black or red, in contrast to the color of the cheek. The effect was as if two individual devils, a fiend of fire and a fiend of darkness, had united themselves to form this infernal visage.
At the beginning of this passage, the narrator seems to look upon the horned man through Robin’s eyes, noting Robin’s “dismay and astonishment” and then describing, in simple literal terms, how the man’s forehead displayed a “double prominence” (or horned appearance), and how he had a “broad-hooked nose” and “shaggy eyebrows.” The narrator’s tone then switches into a more haunting register as he describes the horned man’s face “blaz[ing] of an intense red” on one side while being “black as midnight” on the other.
In the final sentence in the passage, the narrator more overtly tries to frighten their readers by describing how, because of the face paint, it looked “as if two individual devils, a fiend of fire and a fiend of darkness, had united themselves to form this infernal visage.” Here the narrator intentionally draws parallels between the horned man and the devil, encouraging readers to distrust this sinister, evil character.
