It is the purpose of this essay to show that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” is indeed an allegory. M. H. Abrams defines an allegory as a “narrative, whether in prose or verse, in which the agents and actions, and sometimes the setting as well, are contrived by the author to make coherent sense on the ‘literal,’ or primary, level of signification, and at the same time to signify a second, correlated order of signification” (5).
Yvor Winters in “Maule’s Curse, or Hawthorne and the Problem of Allegory” says that Hawthorne is essentially an allegorist (11). Stanley T. Williams in “Hawthorne’s Puritan Mind” states that the author was always “perfecting his delicate craft of the symbol, of allegory” (42).
A. N. Kaul states : “In an effort to apprehend and adequately reflect the new complexity of man’s life, he [Hawthorne] molded the venerable – in his case directly inherited – allegorical method into the modern technique of symbolism” (3). It is quite obvious from the names of the characters in the short story that their names are contrived to give a secondary signification. Goodman is on the primary level a simple husband who is following his curiosity about evil; on the level of secondary signification he is Everyman or the new Adam: R. W. B. Lewis in “The Return into Rime: Hawthorne” states: Finally, it was Hawthorne who saw in American experience the re-creation of the story of Adam and who . . . exploited the active metaphor of the American as Adam – before and during and after the Fall” (72). Goodman responds in this way to the fellow-traveller when the latter implicates the governor in devilish deeds:
“Can this be so!” cried Goodman Brown, with…
… middle of paper …
…t/nh/nhhj1.html
Kaul, A.N. “Introduction.” In Hawthorne – A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by A.N. Kaul. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.
Leavis, Q.D. “Hawthorne as Poet.” In Hawthorne – A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by A.N. Kaul. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.
Lewis, R. W. B. “The Return into Time: Hawthorne.” In Hawthorne – A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by A.N. Kaul. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.
Williams, Stanley T. “Hawthorne’s Puritan Mind.” In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996.
Winters, Yvor. “Maule’s Curse, or Hawthorne and the Problem of Allegory.” In Hawthorne – A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by A.N. Kaul. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.
Coming of Age in Samoa and Soviet Youth
In comparing Margaret Mead’s young adults in Coming of Age in Samoa to Russian youth it is evident where the differences arise. The Samoans strong cultural values leave little need for individual expression. Expectations of the children change as they get older. They know what is expected of them and want to follow the rules. In contrast, the youth in the Soviet Union, live in a culture of confusion. They feel constricted by the laws of the society, see families collapsing around them, and believe things should change. They want to be individuals and they want to live by their own values and ideas. Many come from broken homes and poor communities with little respect for authority. They rebel against what they feel is an unjust society and look for a culture or group that they can identify with.
In an attempt to challenge societal values, youth cultures, in the form of rebellion, act and dress radically and form groups in protest. These dissident actions against the structure of existing society promotes the beginning of new small groups which reflect their own rules, structures, class, gender and ethnic ideologies. So, the youth culture, in challenging societal values, at the same time is reflecting them.
In comparing Margaret Mead’s young adults in Coming of Age in Samoa to Russian youth it is evident where the differences arise. The Samoans strong cultural values leave little need for individual expression. Expectations of the children change as they get older. They know what is expected of them and want to follow the rules. In contrast, the youth in the Soviet Union, live in a culture of confusion. They feel constricted by the laws of the society, see families collapsing around them, and believe things should change. They want to be individuals and they want to live by their own values and ideas. Many come from broken homes and poor communities with little respect for authority. They rebel against what they feel is an unjust society and look for a culture or group that they can identify with.
Often society depicts these groups as dangerous, deviant and delinquent. These groups, however, just show many of the valued structures of society, but in a more radical way. They have a standard code of dress, values, ethics and rebel in order to force their ideas onto the public and to feel part of a recognizable group.