The Structure of Ambiguity in Hawthorne's "The Maypole of Merry Mount"

NOTES THE STRUCTURE OF AMBIGUITY IN HAWTHORNE'S "THE MAYPOLE OF MERRY MOUNT" Joseph J. Feeney, S.J. St. Joseph's College The ambiguity of Hawthorne's well-known tale of Merry Mount functions on several levels—theme and symbol, for examples—but what is important is not the individual levels but their interrelationship. The various levels are woven into a unified whole and the interrelationship itself produces its own ambiguity of tone. Plot and aUegory lean in one direction and favor the invading Puritans; imagery and sound favor the Anglicans of Merry Mount; characterization, diction, symbolism, and theme have no clear bias. When aU these levels are woven together, the resulting ambiguity is different from the ambiguity of any one or two levels taken by themselves; the story is more complex and mysterious because it weaves together levels whose tones are in fact incompatible. Joining together levels of disparate tones into a unified whole constitutes "the structure of ambiguity" and their linking produces an ambiguity of its own. The minimal plot can easily be summarized. A group of New England colonists are dancing around a maypole. The Puritans, under John Endicott, break up the festivities and take the revelers captive; Endicott cuts down the maypole and carries off the captives for punishment. Among the revelers is a young couple, Edith and Edgar, recently married. Each asks to accept the other's punishment and Endicott is softened; he simply orders their bright garments changed and the youth's hair cut. Finding great promise in the young couple, he throws awreath of roses overtheir heads and gently leads them offto live as Puritans. Thus, the Puritans easily conquer and assume control of Merry Mount and its people; even the lovers gracefuUy submit to the new powers. The drive of the plot manifestly favors the Puritans. As allegory, the tale also shows a preference for the Puritan side. 212Notes According to Richard Harter Fogle, the allegory lies in the conflict of jollity and gloom, Merry England and Puritan New England. . . . The outcome [of this conflict] is determined in accordance with an assumption about the world and reality. The dour Puritan triumphs because he is in tune with the nature of things.' Edith and Edgar, again according to Fogle, have to make a similar choice between joUity and gloom: The couple, sensitive and acute spirits who represent themoralnorm of the story and typify the keenest human insight, find themselves forced to make their choiceby an overwhelmingpower, which is not merely external. Puritanism lies closer to the truth than does the paradise of Merry Mount.2 Such a reading of the allegory, with its recognition of the "truth" of Puritanism, reflects Hawthorne's comments in the closing sentences of his tale: As the moral gloom of the world overpowers all systematic gayety, even so was [Edith and Edgar's] home of wild mirth made desolate amid the sad forest. They returned to it no more. But as their flowery garland was wreathed ofthe brightestroses that had grown there, so, in the tie that united them, wereintertwined all the purest and best of their early joys. They wentheavenward, supporting each other along the difficult path which it was their lot to tread, and never wasted one regretful thought on the vanities of Merry Mount.3 Yet even as Hawthorne's allegory asserts the value of Puritanism, the imagery belies this assertion; in the image-clusters there is a preference for the earlier age. The people of Merry Mount offer gay images: roses, a maypole, a silken banner colored like the rainbow, green boughs, sunshine, a purple and golden cloud, a gilded staff, morris dancers, a viol, minstrels, a nuptial song, the Lord and Lady of the May. Although some less pleasant images describe the revels (wolf, bear, mountebank, distorted faces "with red noses pendulous," withering rose leaves, a flower-decked corpse) such images generally offer at least an animal vitality. The Puritans, however, are presented in sterner hues: iron armor, black woods, prayers before daylight, darksome figures, gauntlets, branding and stripes, and a whipping post.4 The tale's sound and rhythm similarly favor the people of Merry Mount. The paragraph introducing this culture5 emphasizes...