In the epigraph to his 1832 short story, “The May-Pole of Merry Mount,” Nathaniel Hawthorne calls his fictionalization of the Puritan raid at Merry Mount colony a “philosophic romance” (p. 678) .
By this phrase, he likely means that he sees his tale as using imaginative storytelling (romance) to ask his readers deep, thought-provoking questions (“philosophic”) about the nation’s past, the legacy of puritanism, and the lasting impact of Merry Mount’s destruction.
In this discussion post forum, think about why, precisely, Hawthorne might have been interested in the historical event that William Bradford accounts in his memoirs, “Of Plymouth Plantation,” namely, the destruction of Merry Mount colony.
How, specifically, does Hawthorne represent the Puritans in this story? Does he sympathize with the Merry Mount colonists in ways that Bradford does not? Why and how so? Finally, consider the ambiguity of the story’s conclusion.
Do you read the story’s last paragraph as a happy, optimistic ending, or rather as one that focuses on the negative impact Puritan culture will have on the U.S., represented in Edgar and Edith’s assimilation to Puritan society (“as the moral gloom of the world overpowers all systematic gaiety…,” p. 685)? What does Hawthorne’s story imply is the lasting legacy of Merry Mount colony’s historical demise?
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