My Kinsman, Major Molineux

by

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Innocence vs. Corruption Theme Analysis

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Innocence vs. Corruption Theme Icon

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” was written in 1831, but set 100 years earlier, during the long run-up to the American Revolutionary War, when colonial Massachusetts was actively opposed to the governors appointed by King James II. This is the state of affairs when the story’s innocent, country-bred protagonist, Robin, obtains passage to Massachusetts Bay and searches for his cousin and benefactor, Major Molineux, who has “inherited riches, and acquired civil and military rank.” Robin considers himself “a shrewd youth” and has an inflated idea of Molineux’s influence and good standing. But throughout the course of a single evening, Robin encounters cruelty, wickedness, and corruption, culminating in the discovery that Major Molineux has been tarred and feathered by the locals, who are led by a mysterious horned man who resembles the devil. As Robin plummets from confidence and security to total resignation, Hawthorne suggests that the price of experience and worldliness is the surrender of innocence.

Robin believes Major Molineux enjoys a high station and prestige in town, but instead finds that the townspeople either deny knowledge of the Major or hold him in contempt (possibly because he represents British rule to the rowdy colonists). Looking about the ramshackle township, Robin can find no house worthy of his cousin’s station, thinking that “This low hovel cannot be my kinsman’s dwelling […] nor yonder old house, where the moonlight enters at the broken casement.” Already, Robin’s naïve expectations have set him up for disappointment. Each time he mentions Molineux’s name to the townspeople, Robin receives some manner of abuse. He is laughed at by the patrons of a barber shop, threatened with being put in the stocks by a watchman, and chased out of an inn after being mistaken for a runaway servant.

He then meets a woman in a “scarlet petticoat” whom he takes to be Molineux’s housekeeper, but who is likely a prostitute and attempts to drag Robin indoors. Each of these encounters serves to further disillusion Robin regarding the reputation of his cousin and his prospects in the town. Robin waits outside the church, told that Molineux will soon be passing by. However, when the Major passes by, it is in a cart, having been tarred-and-feathered by the townspeople who bear torches and wear outlandish costumes. The Major seems to recognize Robin and their eyes meet, at which point “a bewildering excitement began to seize upon [Robin’s] mind; the preceding adventures of the night […] and more than all, a perception of tremendous ridicule in the whole scene, affected him with a sort of mental inebriety.” In witnessing his cousin tarred and feathered rather than honored and adored, Robin is effectively cured of his misconceptions—and, by extension, his innocence—and now sees the madness and injustice of life.

Prior to seeing his cousin tarred and feathered, Robin, in his innocence, anticipates kindness from the townspeople, but receives threats and jeers in return. His preconceived notions as to the warm reception he is prepared for are worn down throughout the course of the story. At one point, Robin pompously accosts an old man, whom he greets with a bow and inquires as to the residence of his kinsman. The old man angrily snaps at Robin with such force that it strikes him “like a thought of the cold grave obtruding among wrathful passions.” A group of barbers and their patrons witness the exchange and laugh at Robin’s distress, further adding to the disenchantment he experiences as he becomes acquainted with his new surroundings.

Three times throughout this same night, Robin meets a mysterious and sinister figure with protuberances resembling horns on his forehead. This devil-like figure represents corruption incarnate, and the high cost of experience, namely the surrender of innocence. After encountering the man inside a tavern, Robin meets the man a second time. His face is painted black and red, “as if two individual devils, a fiend of fire and a friend of darkness, had united themselves to form this infernal visage.” The man embodies the concept of duplicity and appears whenever Robin’s innocence or misconceptions are dashed, thus his face also suggests the difference between appearance and face or expectation and reality, reflecting Robin’s own disillusionment as he is met with unkindness and mockery from the townspeople. This culminates in the ultimate loss of innocence as Robin sees the horned man leading a tarred-and-feathered Molineux at the head of a parade, the horrible sight of which forces Robin out of his naiveté completely.

Near the end of the story, Robin meet a gentleman who treats him with seemingly genuine kindness. Beaten and discouraged, Robin asks him to show the way back to the ferry, only to be told that it is too soon for him to leave and that he “may rise in the world without the help” of Molineux. The story abruptly ends, leaving the means by which Robin will “rise” to the imagination of the reader—one implication seems to be that Robin has landed in a compromised position and will soon find himself exploited. On the other hand, he may enjoy his newfound freedom and rise without a patron or father figure (Molineux), just as the country is attempting to “rise” without its own “father” (British rule).

As the story draws to a close, Robin loses the last shred of his innocence and realizes that the world is unpredictable, unruly, and often impossible to navigate. However, the story ends with a surprising note of hope, as Robin is told that he may yet rise without Molineux. Now that his innocence has been replaced by experience, Robin is free to begin again, and with the benefit of a hard-won wisdom that he altogether lacked at the beginning of the story. Robin’s trials have been necessary, for they have taken him from an inexperienced youth who expects success and profit to come easy to a boy on the verge of manhood who now has the option of facing the world head-on.

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Innocence vs. Corruption Quotes in My Kinsman, Major Molineux

Below you will find the important quotes in My Kinsman, Major Molineux related to the theme of Innocence vs. Corruption.
My Kinsman, Major Molineux Quotes

The youth, one of whose names was Robin, finally drew from his pocket the half of a little province-bill of five shillings, which, in the depreciation of that sort of currency, did but satisfy the ferryman’s demand, with the surplus of a sexangular piece of parchment valued at three pence. He then walked forward into the town, with as light a step, as if his day’s journey had not already exceeded thirty miles, and with as eager an eye, as if he were entering London city, instead of the little metropolis of a New England colony.

Related Characters: Robin , Major Molineux
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 30
Explanation and Analysis:

He now became entangled in a succession of crooked and narrow streets, which crossed each other, and meandered at no great distance from the water-side. The smell of tar was obvious to his nostrils, the masts of vessels pierced the moonlight above the tops of the buildings, and the numerous signs, which Robin paused to read, informed him that he was near the centre of business. But the streets were empty, the shops were closed, and lights were visible only in the second stories of a few dwelling-houses.

Related Characters: Robin
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 32
Explanation and Analysis:

“What have we here?’ said he, breaking his speech into little dry fragments. ‘Left the house of the subscriber, bounden servant, Hezekiah Mudge—had on, when he went away, grey coat, leather breeches, master’s third best hat. One-pound currency reward to whoever shall lodge him in any jail in the province.” Better trudge, boy, better trudge!”

Robin had begun to draw his hand towards the lighter end of the oak cudgel, but a strange hostility in every countenance, induced him to relinquish his purpose of breaking the courteous innkeeper’s head. As he turned to leave the room, he encountered a sneering glance from the bold-featured personage whom he had before noticed; and no sooner was he beyond the door, than he heard a general laugh, in which the innkeeper’s voice might be distinguished, like the dropping of small stones into a kettle.

Related Characters: The Innkeeper (speaker), Robin , The Horned Man
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:

“Nay, the Major has been a-bed this hour or more,” said the lady of the scarlet petticoat; “and it would be to little purpose to disturb him to-night, seeing his evening draught was of the strongest. But he is a kind-hearted man, and it would be as much as my life’s worth, to let a kinsman of his turn away from the door. You are the good old gentleman’s very picture, and I could swear that was his rainy-weather hat. Also, he has garments very much resembling those leather—But come in, I pray, for I bid you hearty welcome in his name.”

Related Characters: The “Housekeeper” (speaker), Robin , Major Molineux
Page Number: 38
Explanation and Analysis:

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.

Related Characters: Robin , Major Molineux , The Horned Man
Related Symbols: The Horned Man’s Painted Face
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 40
Explanation and Analysis:

A fainter, yet more awful radiance, was hovering round the pulpit, and one solitary ray had dared to rest upon the opened page of the great Bible. Had Nature, in that deep hour, become a worshipper in the house, which man had builded? Or was that heavenly light the visible sanctity of the place, visible because no earthly and impure feet were within the walls? The scene made Robin’s heart shiver with a sensation of loneliness, stronger than he had ever felt in the remotest depths of his native woods; so he turned away, and sat down again before the door.

Related Characters: Robin
Related Symbols: The Bible
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:

“Am I here, or there?” cried Robin, starting; for all at once, when his thoughts had become visible and audible in a dream, the long, wide, solitary street shone out before him.

Related Characters: Robin (speaker)
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:

“Well, Sir, being nearly eighteen years old, and well-grown, as you see,’ continued Robin, raising himself to his full height, ‘I thought it high time to begin the world. So my mother and sister put me in handsome trim, and my father gave me half the remnant of his last year’s salary, and five days ago I started for this place, to pay the Major a visit. But would you believe it, Sir? I crossed the ferry a little after dusk, and have yet found nobody that would show me the way to his dwelling; only an hour or two since, I was told to wait here, and Major Molineux would pass by.”

Related Characters: Robin (speaker), Major Molineux , The Horned Man , The Kind Gentleman
Page Number: 45
Explanation and Analysis:

Right before Robin’s eyes was an uncovered cart. There the torches blazed the brightest, there the moon shone out like day, and there, in tar-and-feathery dignity, sat his kinsman, Major Molineux!

He was an elderly man, of large and majestic person, and strong, square features, betokening a steady soul; but steady as it was, his enemies had found the means to shake it. His face was pale as death, and far more ghastly; the broad forehead was contracted in his agony, so that his eyebrows formed one grizzled line; his eyes were red and wild, and the foam hung white upon his quivering lip.

Related Characters: Robin , Major Molineux
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 48
Explanation and Analysis:

“No, my good friend Robin, not to-night, at least,’ said the gentleman. ‘Some few days hence, if you continue to wish it, I will speed you on your journey. Or, if you prefer to remain with us, perhaps, as you are a shrewd youth, you may rise in the world, without the help of your kinsman, Major Molineux.”

Related Characters: The Kind Gentleman (speaker), Robin
Page Number: 50
Explanation and Analysis: