Hawthorne`s Polar Explorations: "Young Goodman Brown" and "My

Transcription

Hawthorne's Polar Explorations: "Young Goodman Brown" and "My Kinsman, Major Molineux"
Author(s): Richard C. Carpenter
Source: Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Jun., 1969), pp. 45-56
Published by: University of California Press
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Hawthorne's
Polar Explorations
"Young Goodman Brown" and
"My Kinsman,Major Molineux"
RICHARD
C.
CARPENTER
T_
_HE MISADVENTURES of Young Goodman Brown and Major
Molineux's youthfulcousin Robin have in recentyearsbeen as
as anyof Hawthorne'sshorterworks.Since
interpreted
extensively
fashion
bothtalesare ambiguousand puzzlingin thecharacteristic
of the best Hawthornestories,it is not surprisingthat theyhave
elicited attentionfroma varietyof critical perspectives.Their
imagery,symbols,cultural milieus, historicalbackgrounds,psychoanalyticimplications,and mythicpatternshave all been so
examinedthatwe knowas much about the individual
thoroughly
tales as we can rightlyexpectfromthe applicationof the critical
intelligence.Nevertheless,all this critical acumen and industry
has allowed one curiouslacuna to remain.Althoughalone among
Hawthorne'stales these two are so closelyparallel in formand
therehas
manneras to be properlyconsideredcompanion-pieces,
been no investigationof this fact. Passing commentsthere are
aplenty,but curiosityapparentlyhasstoppedthere.
characterizaIt may be thatthe close similaritiesin structures,
and
apparent
too
been
considered
and
have
imagery
tion,theme,
obviouseven to thecasual reader,or it maybe thattheseparallels
have been assignedto coincidence.But the obviousin Hawthorne,
as in James,is oftenonlya surfacewhichdisguises,like Poe's purloined letter,matterof morethan passingmoment.The meaning
of the scarletletterand the golden bowl is quite obvious,but no
seriousreader would stop his considerationat the mere fact of
adultery.Coincidence,on theotherhand,while possible,is hardly
Richard C. Carpenter is a professorof English, Bowling Green State University,
Bowling Green,Ohio.
[45]
46
Nineteenth-CenturyFiction
likely.Whetheror not Hawthornewas consciouslyaware (as I
feel he musthave been) of similaritiesin storiespublished only
three yearsapart, his returnto the same structureand themes
more reasonablyimplies a proclivityof the artisticimagination
than it does a happenstance.Painfullyaware of the few thin
stringson which he had to play, Hawthorneappears usually to
have strivento make his works as differentas he could. The
parallelsbetween"Young Goodman Brown" and "My Kinsman,
Major Molineux" implya powerfulimpulse to explore a basic
problemmore than once. One maychargethe artistwith a tendency to repeat himself-the greatestartistsalways do-but not
with coincidence,because the artistis the victimnot of chance
but ofobsession.
It would thereforeappear reasonable to investigatethe parallelism in these two tales and to determinethe significantways
in which each divergesfromthe common foundationon which
theyboth rest.Possiblythese storiesforma kind of test-caseor
laboratoryexperimentin which Hawthornewas able to tryout
his reagentsin the same systematic
way on what appeared to be
distinctpsychicsubstances,discoveringin theprocessin whatways
theirelementswere reallythe same. Or to shiftan over-scientific
metaphorto somethingcloserto the creativeprocess,perhapsby
writingthe same storyas a twice-toldtale, Hawthorneperformed
a kind of explorationof the boundariesof his moral universemovingfromthecenterto thevergesand backagain.
The firstevidenceof parallelism,reconstructing
the exploration
as best we can, is the plot, a seriesof eventssufficiently
alike to
lend themselves
to a singlesynopsis:
A youth,identifiedobscurelyby a genericand symbolicname,
setsout fromthe securityof home and familyon a journeywhich
promisesto bringhim to a new way of life. Untestedand naive,
he sees thisadventureas difficult
yetfilledwith opportunity.He
goessomewhatunwillingly,
and thinkson occasionof thehome he
has left behind, but is persistentin his search. Early in his
journeyhe meetsan elderlygentlemanwhose emblem is a staff
and who seems to know more about the youth than he knows
himself.Darknessfallsas he goes on; his way becomesconfused;
fromvarious quartershe hears demoniac laughter; he is half-
Hawthorne'sPolar Explorations
47
convincedthathe is subjectto hallucinations.People and objects
appear and disappearin phantasmagoric
fashion;he is confronted
at a climacticpoint by a devilishapparition;he becomesincreasinglyexcitedas he nears his goal and burstsout in demoniacal
laughterhimself.Watching a profanerite, lurid against a surrounding darkness,he very nearly becomes a participant,but
comes to his sensesto findthe vision dissipatedand the natural
order restored.He apparentlyhas been profoundlyaffectedby
this experience; the remainderof his life will be completely
alteredbytheeventsofthisone night.
In these days of NorthropFrye and JosephCampbell, such a
plot is inevitablyseen as a typeof quest,and commentators
have
not been remissin pointing this out. What might nevertheless
strikean attentionnot too jaded withmythicanalysisis the fact
that both these storiesexemplifywith unexampled claritythe
typicalquest-pattern,
much less "attenuated"or "displaced," as
Mr. Frye would say, than is usual in fiction,and unique in
Hawthorne'swork,where the mere shadow of such a patternis
rare indeed. Nowhere else, so far as I can determine,did Hawthornewriteeven one storythat can be so neatlyassimilatedto
the main circumstancesof the journey of the hero as Campbell
has outlinedit forus:
The mythological
hero,settingforthfromhis hut or castle,voluntarilyproceedsto the threshold
a
of adventurewherehe encounters
shadowpresencewhichguardsthe passage.He defeatsor conciliates
thispowerand goesintothekingdomof thedark.Beyondthethreshold he journeysthrougha worldof unfamiliar
yetstrangely
intimate
forces,
someof whichseverelythreatenhim and someof whichgive
magicalaid. Whenhe arrivesat thenadirof themythological
round,
he undergoesa supremeordealand gainshis reward,represented
by
hisrecognition
by thefather-creator.
He returnsto theworldbut the
transcendental
powersmustremainbehind.'
Not all of this fitsprecisely,of course. (It does not fitCampbell's examples preciselyeither.) But it does apply to several
aspects of each story.Brown, for instance,meets the "shadow
presence"in the formof his grandfather-reallythe devil taking
on the formmost suited to the occasion; he "conciliates,"or
agrees with this "presence" that he will go into "the kingdom
1 The Hero With a Thousand
Faces (New York,1956),pp. 245-246.I have condensedCampbell'ssummary
to someextent.
48
Fiction
Nineteenth-Century
of the dark."2 The forestthroughwhich he journeysis at once
unfamiliarand seems related to himself,even a projection of
his own spiritualstate.He is both severelythreatenedand aided
on his evil journeyby thevoiceshe hearsfromthe cloud overhead
and the discoveryof Faith's pink ribbon,an ironic emblem,flutteringdown fromthe skyand catchingin the branchesof a tree.
His supremeordeal is in the verydepthsof the forest,where he
recognizesand is recognizedby the Devil, who is in this situafor Brown is to become a demon like
tion his "father-creator,"
those he sees at the blasphemousrite-a child of Satan. He resiststhis fate at the crucial moment,in effectreturningto the
powers"disappear.Yet Brown
world,because the "transcendental
has been drawn into the orbit of evil by his experience,and he
neverrecoversfromit.
Robin, whose other name must be Molineux, although Hawthornegoes to some pains to conceal this factfromus,3 meetsa
kind of "shadow presence,"in the person of an elderlygentleman who representsthe societyof the town and who refusesto
answerRobin's questions: he is a guardian of the town'ssecret.
Robin neitherconciliatesnor defeatsthis guardian but is not
deterredin his search.The forceswhichaid and threatenRobin
are, on the other hand, more explicit than those Brown encounters:an innkeeper,a saucy wench, and the watchmanall
hinderhis quest, while a friendlystranger,"a gentlemanin his
prime, of open, intelligent,cheerful,and altogetherprepossessing countenance,"giveshim help and advice. Robin is, in similar
fashion to Brown, involved in "a world of unfamiliar yet
strangelyintimateforces,"because he is in the dark about the
fate being prepared for his kinsman,so that he is continually
bewilderedand frustratedwhile the townspeopleare all aware
of his searchand his problem. His crucial momentcomes as he
sees Major Molineux draggedin the cart, tarredand feathered.
As the psychoanalyticcriticspoint out, it is here that he enfor whom he has been
countersand recognizesthe father-figure
2
Although Brown's trip has been previouslyplanned and there probably has already been contact between him and the devil, the initial encounter nevertheless
has forhim the authenticshock of a thresholdexperience.
8Several reasons might be given for this secretiveness,among them the desire to
preserve the social distance between the rustic Robin and his powerful (or oncepowerful) kinsman, while at the same time preserving the blood relationship between them. The most probable explanation, to my way of thinking,is that Robin
must be kept an Everymandespite his human and social relationships.
Hawthorne's Polar Explorations
49
searching.He joins in the demoniac laughterof the crowd; the
vision sweeps out of sight,leaving "a silent streetbehind"; and
Robin, wonderingif he has been dreaming,is encouragedby his
mentorto stayin thetown,to profitfromhis experience.
is supplementedby the
The basic structureof thisquest-myth
machinerytypicalof such journeys.The settingin both tales is
made preternaturaland forebodingby a feeling of disorientation. It is plain enough that Brown,venturingever deeper into
the wilderness,should findhis surroundingssinisterand confusing. But the same is true forRobin, who is traversingthe streets
of a little provincial capital. His is an "evening of ambiguity
and weariness"like Brown's,and thebywaysofBostonare nearlyas
labyrinthineas the depthsof Brown'swoods or the streetsof the
town throughwhich K. makes his confusedway in The Castle.
of quests, the hero must be drawn
In the fashioncharacteristic
out of his accustomedtrackin order to become psychologically
preparedforthetotallynewexperiencewhichawaitshim.
A sense of the phantasmagoricaccompanies the spatial dislocation felt by each hero. The Devil's staff,as Goodman Brown
sees it, "bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously
wroughtthat it mightalmostbe seen to twistand wriggleitself
like a living serpent."Like the apparitionof Goody Cloyse and
the Devil himself,the appearance of the staff"must have been
an ocular deception, assisted by the uncertain light." Brown
hears the ministerand Deacon Gookin but can see nothing;
disembodiedaccentsare "talking.., strangelyin the emptyair."
From overhead comes to his ears the "confusedand doubtful
sound of voices" out of a cloud whichhurries"acrossthe zenith"
and hides the "brighteningstars,"although there is no wind
stirring.Yet "so indistinct[are] the sounds" that he doubts
whetherhe hears "aught but the murmur of the old forest,
whisperingwithouta wind."4 Throughout the rest of the tale,
Hawthornecontinuesto emphasizethiskind of ambiguity,as he
similarlyprovidesthe readerwitha sense of the unreal in Robin
4Cf. Paul J. Hurley,"YoungGoodmanBrown's'Heart of Darkness,"'American
Literature,XXXVII (January,1966),410-419. His thesisis that the events all
indicateBrown'shallucination,which he wills, ratherthan that they are ambiguouslyreal or unrealevents:"A moreacceptableinterpretation
of the ambiguity
of the storyis to see in it Hawthorne'ssuggestionthat the incredibleincidentsin
the forestwere the productof an ego-inducedfantasy,the self-justification
of a
diseasedmind.It seemsclear that the incidentswere not experienced:theywere
willed"(p. 419).I substantially
agreewiththisposition.
50
Fiction
Nineteenth-Century
Molineux's surroundings.Robin's disorientedsense is that of
sightinstead of Brown'shallucinationsof hearing; the effectof
dream,even of nightmare,is much the same. "Strangethingswe
travellerssee" repeats Robin, observingwithout understanding
their meaning the preparationsfor tarringand featheringhis
kinsman,the figureshurryingalong the desertedstreets,the man
withtwo faces,"as if two individual devils,a fiendof fireand a
fiendof darkness,had united themselvesto form this infernal
visage."Almostfallingasleep, he confuseshis memoriesof home
with this place where he now sits in wearinessand frustration,
"Am I here, or there?"And when
and asks, most significantly,
the horrid processionappears, Robin has become ready to respond to its dionysiacfrenzy,in part at least because he has lost
perspective.
hiscommon-sense
Both Brown and Robin have talismans:the staffwhich the
Devil gives Brown and Robin's cudgel; theyboth undergotheir
adventuresliterallyat night,as well as undergoinga "nightjourney"; theyobserveand verynearlyparticipatein what can
only be called a rite,and thatrite is in both cases lurid withfire
againsta predominantdarkness;both youthscome back to themselveswitha startafterthe crisis,as if theyhad been in a trance
or dreaming.In more than coincidentalfashionYoung Goodman Brown and Robin Molineux are much the same type of
man involved in the same basic experience of the quest for
knowledgeofgood and evil.
Quests, to be sure, thougharchetypallythe same, take many
differentforms:Ahab, Peer Gynt,and Sir Galahad are classic
heroesof quests,but the themesand tonesof theirstoriesare in
Quests run the gamut fromphiloeach case radicallydifferent.
comedy; indeed if we
sophical tragedyto satire to light-hearted
accept the suggestionof NorthropFrye, the quest-mythis the
basic patternof whichromance,tragedy,irony,and comedyare
"episodes,"5 and it should not surpriseus to find elementsof
the quest in any workwherewe wish to seek it out. Nevertheless,
the differences
among worksbuilt on this fundamentalpattern
are also importantand instructive.
5Anatomyof Criticism(Princeton,1957),p. 215.
Hawthorne's Polar Explorations
51
With "My Kinsman,Major Molineux" and "Young Goodman
Brown" thesedifferences-orperhapsmodulationswould be the
betterword-appear in the typeof adventureon which the heroes are embarked,in the specificnature of the setting,and in
the characterof the hero himselfand the characterswhom he
encounters.Goodman Brown's journey is into the wilderness
while Robin's is into thecity.There is a kind of parallelismhere,
as we have indicated,in the labyrinthineand disorientingnature
of Robin's city.Yet it is a much more solid place than Brown's
forest.The figuresBrownsees are so insubstantialas to disappear
in the wink of an eye; the voices he hears may be nothingbut
the productof his feveredimagination;the Satanic ritual and its
communicantsleave not a trace behind when Brown calls upon
Faith to "look up to heaven,and resistthe wicked one." While
both tales have a dreamlikequality,Robin's world is altogether
more substantialthan Brown's. EssentiallyBrown is living in
solipsism,the projectionof his own tortureddoubt and loss of
faith. His quest is into the depths of his soul, given symbolic
realizationin thefigureshe thinkshe sees and hearsin the wilderness, whereas Robin's is into society.Labyrinthinethough the
cityis, distortedand portentousas it seems to be, the city does
exist, with its taverns,barbershops,churches,and crowds of
people walkingits streets.While it is possible to think,as Hawthornehalf-encourages
us to do, that Brown really has dreamed
all thathas happened to him, it is much more difficultto think
thiswithRobin. When Browncomes to himselfnothingremains
but "calm night and solitude," the once burning twig "besprinkles"his cheek "with the coldest dew"; when Robin recovers, the town is still around him and the kindly stranger
urges him to stay where he may rise in the world withoutthe
help ofhiskinsman.
Evil in "Young Goodman Brown" is concentratedin the
Devil, who firstappears in the guise of Brown'sgrandfather
and
then in his own dark shape as he presidesover the Witches'Sabbath in the depthsof the forest.Robin encountershim,however,
or the evil of which he is the manifestation,
in several characters:the hem-inggentlemanwithhis indifference
and his threats;
the girl with the scarletpetticoatand her sexual invitation;the
sleepywatchman;the man with two faces,closestto the Devil in
his role as a Lord of Misrule presidingover the ruin of Major
52
Nineteenth-CenturyFiction
Molineux. Each of these is evil in a special way; one critichas
suggestedthat not only is the two-facedman symbolicof the
Devil, but the othercharacterscan be seen as assistanttempters:
pride, lust, avarice (in the innkeeper),and sloth."Whetherwe
considerthemthisway or not, theyare clearlysomethingquite
fromthe radicallymetaphysical,the unfocusedessence
different
of evil soughtby Goodman Brown. Robin is exposed not to the
singularevil of the human soul so much as to the multipleevils
ofa socialcosmos.
The charactersof Brownand of Robin are also distinct,even
thoughneitheris highlyindividualized.Brown is a young Puritan husband-that is all we know-but Robin is describedas a
rusticproperlypreparedforhis encounterwith the city,clad in
durable garments,with "vigorous shoulders,curly hair, wellshaped features,and bright,cheerful eyes." Of particular interestis the emblematicstaffwith which Brown is equipped,
a really supernaturalinstrumentfashionedby the Devil from
a maple branch plucked by the wayside,contrastedto Robin's
"heavy cudgel formed of an oak sapling, and retaining a
part of the hardened root"-a serviceableweapon in his forest
home but useless here in the city. Several times Robin wishes
he could use the cudgel to get some satisfactionfromhis tormentors,but in thesesurroundingshis heavyclub has no value.
What he needs is somethinglike the long, polished cane which
the hem-inggentlemanstrikesdown beforehimselfat everystep.
For Brown,who is an archetypalEveryman,the Devil's staffis
a magicinstrument
to help him on his waytowardevil; forRobin
cudgel and staffare means of contending,at this time unsuccessfully,but later withprobable success,againsta world whereone
mustknow the "right"thingsto do. Like a youngMadison Avenue executive,Robin needs to findout the moresof the society
into whichhe is moving.It is a corruptworld,but apparentlyat
theend he has discoveredhow to cometo termswithit.
Other modulations imply this same point: the symbol of
femininity
in "Young Goodman Brown"is a pinkribbon,whereas
in Robin's storyit is a scarletpetticoatbelongingto a youngharlot; laughterin Brown's forestis despairing,demoniac,whereas
the laughter Robin hears is mocking,derisive,contemptuous;
0 Cf. Hyatt H. Waggoner, Hawthorne: A Critical Study (Cambridge, Mass.,
1955),p. 46n.
53
a changein
theassembly
Brownseesin theforest
has undergone
aspect because of theirspiritualalteration,the mob Robin
watchesseemsfiendishbecauseof theircostumesand actions;
whenBrownturnsto religionforhelp he asksFaithto look to
heaven,Robin sees the Bible illuminatedby a singleray of
of natureworshipping
moonlight,
a symbol,so he conjectures,
is
in "thehousethatman had builded."Brown'senvironment
is
the
notonlythesolitary
forest,
but thesolitary
spirit;Robin's
worldofmen.
The reasonswhyHawthornewrotestorieswithso manysimmust
ilaritiesbut providedthemwithsuchstriking
divergences
remainconjectural,
necessarily
yet I believe thatalthoughwe
cannotdeterminereasonssome conclusionsconcerningresults
drawn.The first
oftheseis that"YoungGoodmaybe tentatively
man Brown"differs
from"My Kinsman,Major Molineux"in
differs
fromcomedy.Brownseems
someofthewaysthattragedy
aboutemto suffer
froma degreeofhubris,despitehishesitancy
barkingon his journey;he actsfromthatpeculiarcombination
of freewill and predestination
thatoftenguidestragicprotagonists;he suffers
a kindofspiritualdeathtantamount
to thephysical deaththatovertakes
mosttragicheroes,althoughit mightbe
notedthatOedipus,theprototypal
tragichero,suffers
in much
thesamewayin OedipusTyrannus.
of
Robin,on the otherhand,has manyof the characteristics
thestockcomicfigureof thecountry
bumpkin,fromhis sturdy
homemadeclothesto his cudgelto his self-assurance.7
Naive and
he prideshimselfon his "shrewdness,"
blundering,
whichHawthorneunderlines
withheavyironyby mentioning
it again and
again.He is bothimportunate
and gullible:he tugsat thecoat
ofthemanwiththecaneand is threatened
withthestocksforhis
rudeness;he thinksthattheinnkeeper's
"superfluous
civility"is
due to a recognition
ofRobin'sfamily
resemblance
to theMajor;
he allows himselfto believe,or half-believe,
that the pretty
whoreis the Major's housekeeperand almostfalls into her
toils.Despitehis encounters
withsinister
peopleand frightening
7Cf. Daniel Hoffman,Form and Fable in American Fiction (New York, 1961),
pp. 113-125.
54
Fiction
Nineteenth-Century
events,the best responseshe can make are "Mercy me!" and
"Strangethingswe travellerssee!" In addition to Robin's character as bumpkin,the storyitselfobservessome of the conventions of comedy: the youthfulhero (or eiron) blocked in his
search for fortuneby absurd circumstances;the helpful confidantwho assiststhe hero in his cause; the implicationof his
being rewardedwithromance,or sex at least,as well as fortune,
since the saucy eye and silverylaughterof the prettywench are
at his elbow in the climacticscene; an "assemblyscene" at this
climax where everyoneRobin has encounteredreappears; the
expulsion of a scapegoatfigurefromthe society,to the accompanimentofmuchraucouslaughter.
Althoughit would be plainlya distortionto make thesestories
out to be a tragedyand a comedyrespectively,it is clear that
Hawthornewas using these orientationsto create two different
storiesfromwhat is basicallya singleplot and thatconsequently
we see what appear to be two different
possible outcomesto the
same essentialsituation. Everymanmay, by going deeper and
deeperinto thewildernessof theself,discoversuch evil therethat
he ever aftermust project it upon the world about him-Hawthorne'sthemeof the tragedyof moral isolation,the withdrawal
"fromthe chain of human sympathies,"the soul seeing its sin
in a hall of mirrorswherethe throngingterrorsit perceivesare
multiplied.Or Everymanmayfindhimselfin
onlyitselfinfinitely
a society-a world of interrelatedpeople-whom he has difficultyrecognizingbecause of his concernwith himself,until he
eventuallycomes to a sudden revelationof his innocence,which
and falls fromthat innoappears absurd in thesecircumstances,
cence into sophistication,an event so excruciatinglycomic that
he can do nothingbut laugh in concertwiththosearoundhim.
But althoughthe outcomesare different,
at the same time this
pushingof the comic to the extremeleaves it but a hairsbreadth
fromtragedyso that twostoriesbecome in effectone. The tragic
and comic constitute,in fact,a kind of cyclical processrather
physthan actual antinomies;as in the universeof contemporary
ics,if you go farenough in one direction,you will end up where
you started.By using the archetypeof the quest, Hawthorne
takesus on alternateroutesthat turnout to have practicallythe
same destination.In the one, man comes to grief throughhis
own self-regard,
his willful isolation; in the other he comes to
55
grief-this time without quite realizing what is happening to
him-by being absorbedinto the waysof thoughtand feelingof
a corruptworld,laughingwiththemob at his previousinnocence,
and at the spectacle of his kinsman-the term is significantshamed and tormentedby an assemblageof demons: "On they
went,like fiendsthat throngin mockeryaround some dead potentate,mightyno more,but majesticstill in his agony.On they
pomp,in senselessuproar,in frenziedmerriwent,in counterfeited
ment,tramplingall on an old man'sheart."
Thus Hawthorne,exploringthe limitsof his moral universe,
saw man's quest as the same,regardlessof its specificform.None
of his protagonistsis more of an isolato than Brown; as cut off
fromhumankindas are Ethan Brand and Roger Chillingworth,
theystilllive in a web ofhumanrelationships.And no protagonist
seemslikelyto rise in the social world in the way Robin indubitablywill. Yet, ironically,theyboth are fallen.By tellingus the
Hawthornehas shown
same storyand framingit so differently,
us, as in a paradigm,the themeswith which he was to deal in
most of his work. The ritualisticformof the quest serveshim
especiallywell in bringinghis underlyingidea to the fore.Probably thereasonwhyhe did not continueto providehis tales with
such a clear-cutmetaphoris that he intuitively(or artistically)
recognizedits limitations.In later work,and in othertales written about the same time as "Young Goodman Brown" and "My
Kinsman,Major Molineux," he would turn the physicalsearch
keepingthethemebut not
intoan intellectualor spiritualodyssey,
the metaphor.Occasionally,as in "Roger Malvin's Burial" or
"Ethan Brand,"a portionof the tale takesus on a quest, but the
main driftis in the directionof a spiritual journey. Aylmer,
Owen Warland, Giovanni Guasconti,ArthurDimmesdale,Donatello-all are engagedin one or anotherkind of spiritualjourneythatmaybe takento be theequivalentof Brown'sand Robin's
"actual" quests. But, with the exceptionof "The Celestial Railroad," which is a special kind of satiricallegory,none of Hawthorne'sother works so plainly employsthe unadorned archetypal patternof the journey from innocence into destructive
knowledge.
Significantly
enough,Hawthornedid not continue to findthe
journey into the corruptingworld as imaginativelyeffective
as thatinto spiritualisolation.The comic,while it appears more
56
Fiction
Nineteenth-Century
frequentlyin his workthan one mightthinkfromreadingsome
critics,is not Hawthorne'sdominantmode. Even
contemporary
in "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" it is ambiguous comedy
withno joy in it and a sinisternote at the climax. ProbablyThe
House of the Seven Gables has less ambiguouscomedythan any
otherof his works,a generallysunnierattitude.But even in that
novel-if it is a novel-the sinisterinfluenceof Maule's curse
harmoniousin
preventsus fromfeelingthatall is fundamentally
this social world. Although I have claimed elsewherethat the
endingof the novel,with its sudden floodof good fortune,is an
integralpart of the theme,the implicationof the curse is still
withus. Comedyis hardlyHawthorne'smetier,even if he did try
it on a numberofoccasions.
We may conclude, cautiouslyand with an awarenessof the
tenuityof our chain of reasoning,thatthe parallelsof the stories
we have been examining, togetherwith the deviations from
those parallels,were far fromfortuitousin their end result,no
matterwhat unknowablegenesis theymay have had. By establishingfor Hawthornethe topographicalfrontiersof his moral
territory,
the polar explorationsof thesetales servedhis imagination well. If he had not undertakensuch explorations,I venture
to saythatthe assuranceand artistry
of his laterworkswould cerIn "Young Goodman Brown"
tainlyhave been much different.
he pursuedthe idea of isolationas faras was artisticallyfeasible,
as he followedthe idea of corruptionby societyas far (for him)
as was appropriatein "My Kinsman,Major Molineux." He did
not need to surveythose limitsagain but could map the interin all its fascinatingcontoursand complexities.
veningterritory
As indeed,he did.

Hawthorne`s Polar Explorations: "Young Goodman Brown" and "My

Transcription

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