Essay on Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown and its Author

Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the greatest American authors of the nineteenth century. He published his first novel Fanshawe, in 1828. However, he is widely known for his novels The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables. His novel, The Scarlet Letter, can be analyzed from historical, psychological and feminist critical perspectives by examining his life from the past, as well as his reflections while writing The Scarlet Letter. In order to understand the book properly, it’s necessary to use these three perspectives.

Hawthorne is known for being a Romantic writer with a Romantic subject: a rebel who refuses to conform to society's code. Most

The dialogue, action and motivation revolve about the characters in the story (Abrams 32-33). It is the purpose of this essay to demonstrate the types of characters present in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” whether static or dynamic, whether flat or round, and whether protrayed through showing or telling.

Writing an excellent book, short story,or poem is an ability very few people posses : Nathaniel Hawthorne is someone who had this talent. Hawthorne's writing is mostly centered around romantic fiction, he has written a plethora of things but he is mostly remembered for his short stories and novels. Before divulging into his work, a reader should know where his writing comes from, his inspirations, originality and what some would call pure genius. The author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, is an individual whose work has been and should continue to be analyzed for years to come due to his unique twist on romantic fiction. Many of his works have casted a silhouette over America through his intricate stories and writing style that revealed the themes of psychology and human nature during the 19th century. Hawthorne’s ominous style makes his works into oddities compared to the other romantic fiction novels in his time. Many of his works, such as The Scarlet Letter, exemplifies the epitome of Hawthorne’s distinct outlook on the moralistic attitudes of

Though Nathaniel Hawthorne is an author of many great works, his short story “Young Goodman Brown” still stays relevant because it has themes and subjects that are relatable in today 's world. In the story “Young Goodman Brown,” Goodman Brown leaves his wife Faith, to go into the woods near Salem to have a meeting with the devil. Appearance vs. reality is shown in “Young Goodman Brown” through the plot, the character of Goody Cloyse, and the symbol of the maple staff.

Herman Melville in “Hawthorne and His Mosses” (in Literary World, August 17, 24, 1850) comments on how the writer is seen by others: “But it is the least part of genius that attracts admiration. Where Hawthorne is known, he seems to be deemed a pleasant writer, with a pleasant style,--a

Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the most important authors in the history of American literature and the genre of Romanticism or Dark Romanticism, due to his unique style of writing and his focus upon subjects of Puritan religion and the unknown. I consider Hawthorne an important author, due to the fact that he skillfully and accurately based his fictional writings upon happenings of colonial times, was one of the first authors to display unfortunate outcomes for his characters’ immoral choices according to Puritan beliefs, and wrote of things that were considered taboo in his time, such as witchcraft, scientific innovation and experimentation. I strongly believe that Hawthorne’s influence for his writings were his Puritan ancestral background, his fascination with Puritan beliefs, and his interest in what was considered the unknown such as witchcraft and science. According to the Norton Anthology Textbook Vol. B, Nathaniel Hawthorne was “born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804” (370). Hawthorne belonged “to a family whose ancestral roots were tied to Puritan history, with his family being among the first settlers of Massachusetts and having one of his relatives serve as a judge during the Salem witch trials” (370). Hawthorne, as a young boy, “had a particular interest in writings such as John Bunyan’s Puritan allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress, and by his mid-teens he took interest in British novelists such as Henry Fielding, Tobias Smollet, William Godwin, and Sir Walter Scott”

It strikes the observer of to-day that Hawthorne showed great courage in entering a field in which the honours and emoluments were so scanty

     Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” captivates the reader through a glimpse of the Puritan church. The story also shows the struggle of good versus evil in the main character Goodman Brown. The role of the Puritan church is crucial in shaping Goodman Brown’s personality and helping the reader understand why he was reluctant to continue his journey.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a prominent 19th-century American author who is widely regarded for his adequate contributions to revolutionizing modern day literature. In his three works: Young Goodman Brown, The Birthmark, and Rappachini’s Daughter, Hawthorne uses a myriad of techniques and stylistic traits to portray ideologies and create interest within the readers. In his short stories, Hawthorne flawlessly conveys his erudition on modern themes of psychology and the human inclination to sin through his astute use of ambiguity and symbolism.

In the short story “Young Goodman Brown,” Nathaniel Hawthorne presents several different literary devices such as: imagery, symbolism, and allegory to artistically and elegantly contribute to the story’s main theme. Hawthorne uses these devices to display his themes and ideas regarding the twisted dark path of evil and the inner fears of a man who treads the unknown path of temptation and curiosity. Hawthorne creates depth within the story, characters, and the setting by allowing them to be viewed differently than who they are and what their title holds. Hawthorne applies comprehensible religious ideas in order for people to perceive his theme

It strikes the observer of to-day that Hawthorne showed great courage in entering a field in which the honours and emoluments were so scanty

His elaborate word choice left the reader running back and forth to a dictionary in order to translate. Nonetheless, the storyline flowed naturally even through his convoluted language. This story is one that is worth reading due to its honest interpretation of society. Hawthorne delineates the hypocrisy and stubbornness of human nature through his characters. Specifically, another review by scholar Richard Brodhead, points out that Hawthorne’s novel is directed to those who want to understand the world from a candid perspective, “in the most brilliant part of his account, what might have seemed the most purely literary or aesthetic dimension of Hawthorne's work, his art of meaning management or style, is reseen as the agent of a social process, the shaping of that open-seeming pluralist universe in which liberal culture at once pays tribute to alternative attitudes and defuses them of oppositional force” (Brodhead 3).

Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of “Young Goodman Brown,” was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1804. Hawthorne, born into a Puritan family who was struggling financially, had never met his father. He had died when Hawthorne was but a boy of four years old. This, along with embarrassments brought upon by other ancestors, seemed to affect his writing and perhaps even inspired parts of “Young Goodman Brown.” Hawthorne had one ancestor, a Puritan judge, who persecuted Quakers, and another, who had taken part in the Salem Witch Hysteria (Meyer 322). Both of these were mentioned, or hinted upon, in the story of “Young Goodman Brown.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne is a popular and well known American novelist and short story writer to people all over the globe. He is considered an expert in American fiction. His works of literature often had the same element of fear as many other writers. However, instead of using the actual horror to excite the readers at the climax he focused on the reactions of the characters and how they felt due to the extreme feeling of terror and