"Young Goodman Brown"

Book Review # 117386

English > Analysis
Literature > American

An examination of the portrayal of the protagonist in Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, "Young Goodman Brown."

1,327 words () | 7 sources | MLA | 2009 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the novel, "Young Goodman Brown," written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The paper discusses how Hawthorne portrays his protagonist Goodman Brown and how he creates a symbolic Gothic setting of obscurity and suggests that Goodman's trials and travails may simply be a dream. The paper also looks at how the protagonist's journey leads him to an unsuspected transformation.

From the Paper:

"Bell notes that Hawthorne was motivated in his portrayal of Goodman to illustrate the destructive forces of Christian faith that were molded by the hysteria and the superstition of the witch hunts that took place in his birthplace of Salem. One can surmise that the Salem Witch Trials were especially haunting to Hawthorne whose great-great grandfather was one of the judges who oversaw these trials. Yet Hawthorne's tale expands on the deteriorating traits of suspicion and mistrust, as Goodman suspects not only the people of Salem, but includes Saints as well. And Goodman's tragic end is not only apparent in the demise of his own mistrust, but in his own hubris judgment of believing only in his own virtue that alienates him from the rest of the world."

Sample of Sources Used:

Bell, Millicent. New Essays on Hawthorne's Major Tales. Cambridge U. P., 1993 .Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1993.
Del George, Dana. The Supernatural in Short Fiction of the Americas: The Other World in the New World. Westport: Greenwood, 2001.
Harding, Brian. Nathaniel Hawthorne: Critical Assessment. New York: Taylor and Francis, 1998.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown." Literature and Its Writers: A Compact Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 2nd ed. Eds. Anne Charters and Samuel Charters. Boston: Bedford St. Martin's, 2004. 219-228.
Graham, Wendy. Gothic Elements and Religion in Nathaniel Hawthorne's Fiction. Marburg: Tectum Verlag, 1999.