Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Mr. Nathaniel Hawthorne

In My Kinsman Robin gets off the boat and searches this new town for Major Molineux and receives many crude and unhelpful remarks as he begins his search. As he continued to ask where the whereabouts of his kinsman was every person laughed as he walked away.  He reaches a mean part of town and a woman tells Robin that the Major dwells in her home.  When a man comes to scare anyone away from the street Robin realizes this is not the house she's searching for at all.  Robin decides to wait at a church for his kinsman to pass, he then passes the time by looking around in different ways at the town around him.  A man then comes and asks his business there, which Robin responds with the story of how he knows the kinsman and why he came; this man being interested to see the meeting decides to wait with Robin.  At this time a commotion takes place, with much music playing and crowds of people wondering what is going on, a man on a horse leads the group who carries a tar and feathered man in an uncovered cart; Major Molineux.  Robin quickly sees every person he had encountered on his search and understands their reactions.  Robin doses, and when he awakes he asks the man waiting with him to point him to the ferry, the man refuses and says in a few days he will either point him to the ferry or maybe Robin will choose to stay and make his way without the help of his kinsman.

Thinking about this story after the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers makes me think about how if you didn't do what the masses wanted then they would take matters in their own hands.  For instance if a certain state felt their interests weren't being taken into consideration they would rise up against their appointed representative.  I'm not sure the backstory of the Major but I'm thinking something like this story could happen to a representative.

With Robin just coming to America and not really knowing how everything works I see why the different people wouldn't tell him where the Major was.  I also understand why he wouldn't want to outwardly brag that he knows the Major which made me very scared for him at the end of the story.  I was surprised that no backlash came to him for knowing and trying to associate with the Major.

As I think about how this could relate to society today I see some parallelisms.  If a teenage girl was the queen of the popular crowd and does something the masses don't like she will be excluded and persecuted for the rest of her high school career.  Teenagers never seem to forget something that someone else does that is detrimental to their image.  In the same way America doesn't forget any of the downfalls that famous people or corporations have.  BP had a major oil spill and I know that I won't ever shop their again, not that I did before.

3 comments:

  1. What I want to go back and comment on are the different characters that are mentioned in the story.

    First, I want to look at the girl in the scarlet petticoat. I thought when I read it that she was living in a whore house. She was certainly not the housekeeper for the Major and just wanted to get Robin into the house.

    Next I want to look at the two faced man who I thought was showing how all of the people are two faced. Meaning, at one point they'll be your best friend and the next minute they'll turn their back on you. At this time it seemed like you couldn't trust anyone, and I think this man showed this concept.

    I also want to talk about how, in class, people said that the tarring of the British appointed governor was justified. I completely disagree, I think that it's hypocritical of these people to persecute this man for any reason. Americans originally came over to escape different situations they were in and to start over. Now these same people are persecuting this man and torturing him because they don't like him and he's weaker and in the minority. It makes me quite disgusted with this people and truly disappoints me.

    The point when Robin starts laughing with the crowd shows the time when he finally comes to age. He breaks apart and has found he needs to find his own way. At the end of the story when the man says you can either go back or stay and find your own way I think is a metaphor for America. We can either go backwards and get help from other countries or we can move forwards and continue to find our own way and see where it will take us.

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  2. I swear I commented on this earlier in class today..do you know where it went haha!

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  3. Not a clue!! I never got an email saying anything was posted.

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