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Situational Irony
Style
Explanation and Analysis:
Hawthorne’s writing style in “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” is extremely expressive, full of rich descriptions and figurative language. Take the following passage, for example, which comes as Robin looks in through the windows of a church after searching for Major Molineux in vain:
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.
Hawthorne uses several different stylistic choices here in order to bring readers more closely into this scene. For example, he uses imagery when describing the “one solitary ray” that “had dared to rest upon the opened page of the great Bible,” helping readers to picture this spiritual sight. He then immediately goes on to use a personification, comparing nature to “a worshipper,” again highlighting just how spiritually significant the light upon the Bible feels to Robin in this moment. In this sentence—and the next—Hawthorne uses interrogative sentences, almost seeming to pose such questions directly to the reader (thereby pulling them even more closely into the scene).
In the final sentence in the passage, Hawthorne again uses imagery, this time visceral, as he describes Robin’s heart “shiver[ing] with a sensation of loneliness, stronger than he had ever felt in the remotest depths of his native woods.” This language helps readers to understand that, after hours of wandering this unknown city for hours, Robin finally experiences a moment of respite at the familiar sight of a Bible before ultimately feeling a deep loneliness and longing for home. This entire night Robin has been belittled by cruel strangers and, though he desires the simple, familiar goodness of the Bible (and of home), he is unable to enter the church, trapped, as he is, in this city of sin.
Related Themes:
