Parallels In My Kinsman, Major Molineux

In this short story, Hawthorne exemplified his interest in creating a literary world abstracted from reality. My kinsman, Major Molineux was a story, I believe, corresponding and related to Hawthorne life story. Hawthorne lived in a mysterious world which *permitted anyone to enter. He kept himself locked up in one room for twelve years and was isolated from the community. I believe he relates himself to the character Robin and parallels the emotions and similarities to that of his life. For example, in the story Robin is given a lesson and isolated from the group of a new colony. His pride and credibility as a kinsman only led him to misery and disrespect because he acknowledged himself as kinsman and felt he deserved something in return.

Hawthorne's writing is marked by its introspective depth, by its urge to get inside the character he created. Hawthorne is one of the first major American writers of fiction to focus on the interior lives of his characters, to explore what was considered the deeper phychology of art. Hawthorne's work suggests that the imagination might reconcile such extremes and establish a more balanced, less dehumanized view of individual action and moral responsibility. Hawthorne express these kind of actions in the story and plays with your imagination and makes you take different perspectives. He lets you, make the final decision and doesn't give a final clue to what happened. Did Robin join the rest of the group or did he leave on the next ship out.

In my perspective, Robin joined the colony and realized that he couldn't survive in the new colony without their acceptance and his characteristics of England. Robin and Hawthorne parallel because both of them faced the problem of being accepted by society. They might of had obstacles and difficulty fitting in with society.

9/3/96