미국혁명의 폭력적인 기원: 호손의 「내 친척, 몰리노 소령」을 중심으로

Abstract

On its surface, the narrative of “My Kinsman Major Molineux” by Hawthorne seems to glorify the Holy History of the American Revolution and the American myth of self-made success, both of which began to be touted as official ideologies of the United States in the 19th century. For example, the popular protest against the British king’s usurpation of the power to appoint colonial governors seems to serve as a democratic origin of the American Revolution. In addition, Robin, the protagonist of the story, appears to be a shrewd youth who can pave the way to a promising future like Benjamin Franklin, the paragon of the self-made man. Beneath the narrative surface, however, the narrator deviously begins to illuminate the violence and mobocracy inherent in the origin of the American Revolution. The crowds attending the protest are temporarily united by meaningless laughter and discordant commotion, completely lacking rationality. More ironically, the seemingly democratic resistance turns out to be no other than organized mob violence, tarring and feathering Major Molineux−the tyranny of the majority over an individual. Furthermore, Robin, who surprisingly proves to be violent, domineering, and not very shrewd, falls silent after witnessing his kinsman’s tremendous disgrace. Dispossessed and disinherited, he simply wishes to return home. The optimistic vision of self-made success, buttressed by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s self-reliance and Thomas Jefferson’s independence, is thus debunked and overwhelms him because this rural youth barely 18 years old is not yet ready for the complex political and commercial tricks that constitute entrepreneurial manhood−adult duplicity, aggression and manipulation−necessary for ruthless success in the urban market. By thus shattering confidence in both the righteousness of the American Revolution and the possibility of self-made success−i.e., by betraying the violent origin of the American Revolution−“My Kinsman Major Molineux” eventually helps readers to understand the reality of the nineteenth-century America: dislocations and disruptions by the emerging market economy and mass democracy. Simultaneously, however, Hawthorne’s explicit condemnation of the Revolutionary mob and excessive idealization of the Loyalist Major Molineux in this short story implies his fundamental fear of any form of social change that inevitably involves violence, the breakdown of social order and bonds, and class conflict. Admittedly, such fear contributes to the effective illumination of historical ironies such as the violent origin of the American Revolution. Nevertheless, Hawthorne’s extremely conservative imagination would lead to his limitations as a writer, as revealed by his later works.