The Man Of The Crowd And Ligeia By Edgar Allen Poe

The 19th century American poet, Edgar Allan Poe, had been plagued by grief from an early age. He was an amazing poet and author who just happened to have a darker story. Many who have studied this prestigious man feel that his works, though magnificent, were extremely dark. Some believe it was nothing more then a fancy for him to spin such gruesome tales. Others feel his work was manipulated by the misfortune of his past. These people have actually found evidence that agrees with this statement. The works of Edgar Allan Poe were inspired by the history and life style of the author. The evidence is evident, when people look back and examine the author, his life, and his writings closely.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss, and analyze the short stories "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allen Poe and "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Specifically it will discuss the phenomenon of evil in the human heart as it appears in these two works. Evil lives in everyone, whether they want to acknowledge it or not. These two chilling tales show two different sides of evil, but they both illustrate how evil can corrupt a person right down to their very heart and soul.

In the short story “Young Goodman Brown,” a good and proud Puritan man; Goodman Brown, encounters a devil that causes him to become aware of the town he lives in. Goodman Brown believes that a meeting with the Devil cannot change his faith in religion. He desires to find more about his inner domains, but later finds out how hypocritical his town is. He then comes to realization that man is imperfect and defect. Goodman Brown later dies a sore death from the insight of his journey in the forest. In “Young Goodman Brown” Nathaniel Hawthorne uses imagery, symbolism, and allegory throughout the story to question the faith of man. The narrator uses dark and light imagery, people and names to illustrate the irony.

Many modern and older short stories are written around a central theme. Most authors write about many different themes and their works are generally focused around one specific theme meant to send a message with a deeper meaning to the reader. In Nathanial Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Minister’s Black Veil,” Hawthorne centralizes the stories around the theme of evil. In “Young Goodman Brown,” the protagonist is a puritan who goes by the name of Goodman Brown. In the middle of the night, he decides to wander into the woods to meet with someone for an evil deed. As the story progresses, the reader finds out he is meeting with an old man that is thought to be the devil himself. As Goodman Brown goes further into the woods with the devil, he recognizes some people from his town. He quickly finds out that the people are also in the woods to makes deals with the devil. In “The Minister’s Black Veil,” the protagonist is Reverend Hooper. Hooper attends his church wearing a black veil that completely covers his face. The reader never finds out why he covers his face, but he preaches to his churchgoers about secret sin and that everyone has done something evil they want to hide. Based on that, readers can infer that he has committed an evil, secret sin of his own. Throughout both of Hawthorne’s works, he uses motifs, symbols, and the themes themselves to connect to the nature of evil in the two stories.

The words people use and how they use them holds so much power within themselves. It seems that, people are always searching for the right words to express their true emotions towards a certain subject. Artists and authors manage to make a living off of knowing how to use the right words to reach through to their platform. Though within his time, Edgar Allan Poe did not have an established platform and was seen as estranged; he still dabbled as an author and has made many famous short stories and poems that we enjoy to this day. Poe uses tone, diction, imagery, symbolism, elements of the supernatural, and allusions to illustrate his themes of sorrow, madness, revenge, and uses these to project and give refuge to his inner

In the short story “Young Goodman Brown,” the author Nathaniel Hawthorne shows the fragility of humans when it comes to their morality. Goodman Brown goes on a journey through the forest with the devil to watch the witches’ ritual and observes the evil in the Puritan society. He loses his faith as he sees the people he respects the most participating in the sinful ritual. Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes setting, and symbolism in his short story “Young Goodman Brown,” to show how a person’s perspective can change by showing the hypocritical nature of the Puritan society

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story “Young Goodman Brown” and Stephen King’s “The Man in the Black Suit,” the protagonists experience an encounter with the Devil. The authors use features such as appearance, behavior, and dialogue to develop the characteristics of their Devils. The Devils demonstrate a common pattern of deception and manipulation to inflict suffering upon the protagonists, leading to the common theme of the two stories. In both stories, the writers explore the theme of the effects of evil on innocence.

The depictions of the Devil in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” and Stephen King’s “The Man in The Black Suit” include differences to the character that convey the numerous ways evil can affect the innocence and morality of people. Their appearance and motivations dictate the success their evil intentions have on the character and lives of the protagonists.

Poe often used depressed tones and imagery to create a dark kind of feeling to his work. The death of Edgar Allen Poe’s young wife put a bitter resentment in the writer. He felt like he was cursed and that the heavens stole his joy and claimed that the angel envied their happiness. Poe was accused of rumors and scandals his whole life, afflicted with depression, pinned down by phobias and horrific fantasies, and his writing reflects the madness in every lover’s heart. (Harris 60) In many of Edgar Allen Poe’s writings, he used gothic elements to express his pain and revealed the darker side of human nature.

In “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Minister’s Black Veil” Nathaniel Hawthorne writes about a recurring theme of sin. Although sin is present in both of these works, the way that the characters come to deal with this innate sin of humans is very divergent. In both works sin is somehow concealed from others and keeps them from reaching a point of goodness. “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Minister’s Black Veil” can be considered counterparts and both depict the theme of sin and evil.

“Young Goodman Brown,” a short story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, recounts the tale of a young Puritan man who is transformed by witnessing the bitter truths of humanity. In Goodman Brown’s journey into the woods, he discovers the hidden evils of the individuals that once appeared virtuous to him. Throughout the story, the forces of good and evil are contrasted. In this short story, Hawthorne uses symbolism, the discordance between a character’s appearance and his/her true nature, and contrasting colors to portray the vicious and hypocritical nature of Puritans.

Poe uses the dark side of human nature to create a demoralizing and daunting story in both “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” In “The Cask of Amontillado,” one can see that the dark side of human nature is conveyed through Montresor’s actions of murdering his enemy, Fortunato. As seen in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the dark side of human the race is shown through the protagonists dark and treacherous actions resulting in the death of an innocent, old man. The dark side of human nature, and the dreadful actions that are taken within the stories, are prime examples of the devilish and demonic forces within our world. The dark side of human nature is expressed in “The Cask of Amontillado and “The Tell-Tale Heart” through the protagonist’s actions of guilt, deceit and insanity.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Ministers Black Veil” are two short allegoric stories. “Young Goodman Brown” is a moral story which is told through the perversion of a common townsman. In Young Goodman Brown, Goodman Brown is a Puritan man who lets his excessive pride interfere with his relationship and the community; after he meets with the devil he is outraised and has live a life of exile. Similarly “The Ministers Black Veil” is also a moral story that is told through the perversion of a religious Puritan leader. In The Ministers Black Veil, Mr. Hooper is so embarrassed and ashamed of his sin that he attempts to disguise it by wearing a black veil. The veil later becomes the main symbol of all hidden sins. In an ironic way, Mr. Hooper and Goodman Brown are both wearing veils to cover up their guilt, excessive pride, and hidden sin.

In this extract from “Young Goodman Brown”, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbolism, imagery and point of view to depict Goodman Brown’s eventual journey from naivety in man’s purity of faith to recognition of man’s disposition to evil. It reveals Brown’s misplaced faith in man, who is deficient, instead of God.

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) born in the United States was a poet, writer, critic, and journalist recognized as one of the greatest exponents of the Dark Romanticism (Ultan and Olson, 51). Dark Romanticism is an American literary subgenre emerged in the nineteenth century from the philosophical movement called transcendentalism. Dark Romanticism, broadly speaking, rely very little on perfection as an innate quality of the human being, a key idea of the transcendentalists (Howard, 1). As consequence, its characters are prone to sin and self-destruction, since by nature, they are not wise or divine beings. One of the most representative authors of the current is Poe, who is