Three times, Robin encounters a man with horn-like protrusions on his forehead. The second and third time Robin meets this horned man, he has painted his face half-red and half-black. Apparently a figure of considerable influence in town, the painted face of the horned man thus represents division and duplicity, both between America and Britain and among the American people. The overall effect is described as if “two individual devils, a fiend of fire and a fiend of darkness, had united to from this infernal visage.” An hour later, when Robin witnesses the horned man leading the parade of people who have tarred and feathered Molineux, the man’s face is said to be “war personified; the red of one cheek was an emblem of fire and sword; the blackness of the other betokened the mourning that attends them.” The division is significant, as America is itself split between self-governance and British rule, and the shadow of the Revolutionary War has fallen over the Massachusetts Bay colony.
Red is traditionally associated with bloodshed and violence, while black is the color of woe and bereavement—the nascent United States will come to see plenty of both. Just after Robin encounters the horned man’s painted face, a kind gentleman emerges from the shadows of a nearby church and is the only townsperson in the story to show genuine care for Robin. The gentleman’s kindness and association with the purity of the church thus embodies Christian charity, while the horned man physically resembles the devil and represents cruelty and iniquity. The gentleman asks Robin “May a man not have several voices […] as well as two complexions?” This suggests that the horned man, and particularly his face, is merely a representative of the larger crowd, representing the spirit of the mob justice and divisiveness that is plaguing the American colonies.
The Horned Man’s Painted Face Quotes in My Kinsman, Major Molineux
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, were those which he had noticed at the inn, but the man’s complexion had undergone a singular, or, more properly, a two-fold change. 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.
The single horseman, clad in a military dress, and bearing a drawn sword, rode onward as the leader, and, by his fierce and variegated countenance, appeared like war personified; the red of one cheek was an emblem of fire and sword; the blackness of the other betokened the mourning which attends them. In his train, were wild figures in the Indian dress, and many fantastic shapes without a model, giving the whole march a visionary air, as if a dream had broken forth from some feverish brain, and were sweeping visibly through the midnight streets.
The Horned Man’s Painted Face Symbol Timeline in My Kinsman, Major Molineux
