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PARTISAN REVIEW
Malcolm Cowley describes the story as "the legend of a youth
who achieves manhood through searching for a spiritual father and
finding that the object of his search is an imposter" (Introduction to
The Portable Hawthorne).
Leaving to one side the question of
whether Robin is searching for a spiritual father, it may be said at
once that there is no evidence that Major Molineux is an imposter.
The first paragraph of the story tells us that the colonial servants
appointed by Great Britain were likely to be resented even when they
carried out instructions with some lenience; and we are later told
that the Major's head had "grown gray in honor."
Mrs. Leavis regards "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" as a
"prophetic forecast of ... the rejection of England that was to occur
in fact much later" ("Hawthorne as Poet,"
Sewanee Review,
Spring
1951).
This
is by no means as far-fetched a reading of the story as
it may at first appear. It has the merit of calling attention to a rebel–
liousness in Robin for which, as we shall see, there is a great deal
of evidence. But as I think will become clear, Mrs. Leavis has per–
ceived a secondary implication of that rebelliousness; it has a much
more intimate source and reference.
The remaining critics who have commented on "Major Moli–
neux" have evidently based their remarks almost entirely on their
conscious reactions to the story's manifest level of meaning. At best,
I believe, such criticism is of limited value; in connection with such
a work as this it is sometimes actually misleading. Like some other
stories by Hawthorne and by such writers as Melville, Kafka, Dos–
toevsky and Shakespeare, "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" is Janus–
faced. It says one thing to the conscious mind and whispers some–
thing quite different to the unconscious. The second level of mean–
ing is
understood
readily enough, immediately and intuitively. Our
acceptance of Robin's behavior-which, as we shall see, is bizarre
not only during his ultimate encounter with
his
kinsman but through–
out the story-is only explicable, I believe, on the assumption that
we understand it without difficulty. To respond to the story, to find
Robin's behavior not only "right" but satisfying, we must perceive
a great many things nowhere explicitly developed. These hidden im–
plications are not meant to come to our attention as we read; they
would arouse anxiety
if
they did. Even to get at them after one has
read the story requires a deliberate exertion of will. There is still
