Diversity in Young Goodman Brown, Ethan Brand, and The Birthmark

Diversity in Young Goodman Brown, Ethan Brand, and The Birthmark

"... it is no delusion. There is an Unpardonable Sin!" , a quote

by Ethan Brand that is at the root of many stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Nathaniel Hawthornes gloomy, dark style of writing is an emphasis on his theme

of evil at societies heart. Writing about what he knew, Hawthorne described the

puritan society in different periods of time and defined different characters

but all connected through his style. The stories that exemplify the diversity

of Hawthornes writing are "Young Goodman Brown", " Ethan Brand", and "The

Birthmark".

Having read these stories it is possible to become engrossed in

the darkness that is portrayed and none is better than "Young Goodman Brown" .

Young Goodman Brown, the character, is first introduced to us in the clearing of

Salem village and we learn that he has faith in the goodness of the village and

Faith for his companion as well. The people that we meet in Salem village in

the first few paragraphs are just Goodman and Faith. These two characters are

very important to understand for their surface characters or illusional

characters. It is soon learned that Goodman Brown is not such a good man and

later Faith shows us just as much false character. Goodman and Faith are not

the only characters that are not all they seem to be. We come to meet more

characters in the short story that are superficial as is the village itself.

Goodman Brown leaves the bright, warm, goodness of his village to make a journey

in the woods to meet a stranger. A good place to meet a stranger would be

these surrounding woods of Salem for it is here that described by Nathaniel

Hawthorne that "He had taken a dreary road,darkened by all the gloomiest trees

of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through,

and closed immediately behind." and like the scheming mind of an evil person

the dark woods leads one down the wrong pathway.

The woods are not an allusion as was the village, the woods are

exactly what they seem to be therefore the characters met inside the woods will