In the following essay, McKenna shows how Frazer's assumed cultural superiority over and distance from his subjects in The Golden Bough distinguish the work from a literary standpoint.

Literary critics have traced the influence of Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough through the works of authors as diverse as Scott Fitzgerald and Sigmund Freud. Almost no modern writer has escaped the scrutiny of comparison. However, only a few scholars have subjected The Golden Bough to the scrutiny of critical evaluation, and their studies are mostly responses to the "hostile scrutiny" of anthropologists and classical scholars who find fault with The Golden Bough's theoretical framework and methodology. Their objections are twofold: On one level they find fault with Frazer's lack of field experience—he gathers his information only from secondary sources; on another level they object to Frazer's interpretation of this information— he can find...