From Hawthorne to J.D. Salinger: The May Pole of Merry Mount

Nathaniel Hawthorne's story The May Pole of Merry Mount is stranger and darker than it first appears - in fact, that's true of much of Hawthorne's short fiction; at first it seems like he's writing a quaint and sentimental account of the festive celebrations in colonial Massachusetts: a fairly extensive and detailed account of how the village decorated its May pole, keeps the festivities going each season, but esp. in spring, crowning a kind and queen of the May, the village priest calls on everyone to dance and celebrate - this is the kind of world that CL Barber wrote about in Shakespeare's Festive Comedies, one of the most famous analyses of the comedies and one that I essentially skewered when I wrote on this same topic as his view was completely one-sided and oblivious about social class. Hawthorne has the same wider vision: he introduces a dark note in the story and the king and queen of May look at each other and briefly realize they will not hold their "crowns" forever, there's a shadow of death that passes over them. And then Hawthorne flips the story around: the Puritans arrive, led by their hateful and narrow-minded governor (?) Endicott - they knock down the May pole, threaten all with whipping and imprisonment, arrest the priest, finally confront the king and queen of May and realize that they at least have a chance for redemption bring them into the Puritan society - dark, mirthless, insular, racist, and xenophobic. This story is in its way a model for every counter-culture story for generations that follow: Isn't Catcher in the Rye its descendant? One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest? On the Road? A million others? It could have been the anthem for the '60s anti-war movement and cultural revolution - in particular, when the Puritans insist that they trim the flowing locks of the May king. It's also the antecedent to the many accounts of religious oppression that we see today: the Taliban, the fanatics of ISIS, the Boko whatever in Nigeria - all should read this story (ha!). Yes, it's kind of naive in its romantic vision of the festive celebrations but it's one of the starkest literary depictions of a clash of cultures and world view. Which side are you on?