Missing the Boat: Narrative Artistry in Hawthorne’s “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” and James’s The Ambassadors

Abstract

Might the pre-revolutionary setting of Boston, as depicted in Hawthorne’s “My Kinsman, Major Molineux,” relate to high-society Paris in James’s The Ambassadors? What do the nepotistic outlooks of Robin Molineux and Lambert Strether have in common? How does the narrative technique of Hawthorne’s tale anticipate the artistry of one of James’s most complex narratives, and in what manner does James go beyond his predecessor in refining the reflector-narrator technique? The magnitude and significance of such concerns—although in Hawthorne’s tale, historically momentous; in James’s narrative, highly personal—stand to enhance understanding of how James enhanced the narrative technique of “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” in dramatic renderings of apperceptive consciousness and post-factum narrative speculation.