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

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