Megan Danzo
Raymond Benoit
English 323 Paper #4
May 1, 2014 A Dwelling Place as the Protagonist’s Home
The famous quote states “Home is where the heart is.” This quote shows that a
persons’ home or dwelling place can parallel people’s emotional location as well. In My
Kinsman Major Molineux, The Jolly Corner, and Big Two Hearted River, the authors
Henry James, Ernest Hemingway and Nathaniel Hawthorne use contrasting dwelling
places to show the development of the protagonists throughout the work. This character
development progresses the various themes presented in these works.
Throughout their works, James, Hemingway and Hawthorne, all focus on
dwellings, or the protagonists “place of residence” (Dwelling). Repeated ten times
throughout My Kinsman Major Molineux, ‘dwelling’ seems to have two different
meanings in this story—the country, which is Robin, the protagonist’s, home, and the
city, Robin’s kinsmen’s dwelling. Although Henry James does not use the word
‘dwelling’ in The Jolly Corner the recurrence of the words house and home over thirty
times demonstrates that he too focuses on residences of characters. The story focuses
around two main dwellings—the house that Spencer Bryan, protagonist, plans to use as
apartments to rent out and the Jolly Corner, Spencer Bryan’s childhood home that he
plans to leave empty. Finally, Ernest Hemingway focuses on dwellings as well.
Repeating ‘ground’ twenty three times, Hemingway emphasizes that the ground, which
some believe indicates a lack of dwelling place, can be his home: “He was in his home
where he made it” (Hemingway). While reading these repetitions throughout the story,
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the audience can see the authors focus on them. However, it is not until readers better
understand the works’ themes that they understand why the authors focus on the
protagonists’ dwelling.
In all three works the authors contrast two different settings. When describing the
first setting the authors focus on nothingness and the dwelling that allows people to return
to the basic primitive ways. My Kinsman Major Molineux only briefly addresses the first
primitive, blank setting. Robin is originally from the countryside, free of the excesses of
the city. In the postscript of My Kinsman Major Molineux, Robin tells his mentor that he
wishes to go to back home. Because the countryside is more peaceful and innocent,
Robin can feel safe in the bareness of the country and also more fully find himself
without the distractions of the city. He was a youth of barely eighteen years, evidently
