My Kinsman, Major Molineux Analysis

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s My Kinsman, Major Molineux is a story about coming of age and understanding how the world has changed. Both the hero of the story and the town experience growth that manifests itself as cultural change. Robin accepts his loss of innocence much as the culture of the time accepts the forced political and cultural developments.
One reason for such placement could be the manner in which the world is presented to the readers where the descriptions of even the clothes show that everything was bright and new. The hero of the story, i.e. Robin was quick to see the differences between himself and the others in town and the differences embarrassed him greatly. One such example is when he is resisting the demands of the lady of …show more content…
He continues to examine the delights of the city as he searches for his kinsman until he eventually falls into a trance brought on by homesickness. He remembers how his father encouraged domestic worship with the neighbors and it is clear that he misses that environment. In effect, the story switches back and forth from modern to ancient and from rural to urban which certainly reflects the conflicts that are coming up in Robin’s mind. It is also made clear to the reader that the importance of religion is diminishing everywhere but we are not told exactly how Robin feels about that. At the same time, since we know that he misses the ritual it is easy to believe that he did find some comfort in those …show more content…
Before the end of the tale, Robin sums up his experience of life in the city by noting that he sees the city with an air of disgust. The life he saw in the city did not attract him where the final exclamation point of his journey was meeting his kinsman who would not want to see his face again anyways. Robin acknowledges that he is weary of the city life and that makes the reader more certain that he would return to the more simple country ways of his