The Golden Bough at Merry Mount

Abstract

IT IS A COMMONPLACE to observe that Hawthorne's novels and short stories draw heavily on myth, legend, and folklore both for materials and atmosphere. In the case of The Maypole of Merry Mount Hawthorne himself acknowledges this interest and claims as his source Joseph Strutt's The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England. To date, however, no one has looked very closely at the actual legendary and folklore material to determine the possible significance it may have for this and other stories. In recent years the most complete and extended attempt to interpret and relate the folk customs to the great myths and legends of the past has been that of the Cambridge school of anthropology, which is epitomized by The Golden Bough of Sir James G. Frazer. When The Maypole of Merry Mount is read in the light of these theories and interpretations, a fresh dimension of meaning is uncovered. The story is immeasurably enriched for the reader, who thereby attains a deepened awareness of the scope and complexity of Hawthorne's mythapoeic talent. The imaginative significance of the tale's anthropological material reveals two central themes, each of which reinforces the other. The first, and the more obvious, of these deals with two contrasting religious attitudes toward pleasure and, covertly, sex. This theme develops in dialectical fashion from thesis through antithesis to synthesis. At the outset two forces are in conflict: