Compare And Contrast Young Goodman Brown And The Fall Of The House Of Usher

It is amazing how two pieces of literature can be very different and very similar at the same time. Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne are two authors that have very different writing styles are both considered to be Dark Romanticists. While Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and Nathaniel Hawthorn’s “Young Goodman Brown” are two different short stories with major differences, they are also similar in concepts of genre, symbolism, and historical context. “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “Young Goodman Brown” both are examples of Gothic Fiction; which combines horror, fiction, death, and sometimes romance. It is expected to find mysterious characters and creepy settings in this genre. In “The Fall of The House of Usher”, the setting is in a spooky old mansion. The
Both stories were published in the 1830s during the time of Dark Romanticism which both authors were a part of. Dark Romanticism focuses on human sin and immorality, and evil in living forms such as devils and ghosts. In “Young Goodman Brown”, the old man in the forest would be considered the devil. Hawthorne says in the story, “But the only thing about him that could be fixed upon as remarkable was his staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought that it might almost be seen to twist and wiggle itself like a living serpent – ‘the devil!’ screamed the pious old lady.”(Hawthorne 623) The old man is very devil- like with his serpent staff that is almost seen to come alive. In “The Fall of the House of Usher”, instead of having a devilish character, it has the horrifying event of being buried alive. Poe states in the story that “We have put her living in the tomb!”(511) Here Roderick was talking about his sister Madeline and how they buried her alive in the family tomb below the house. In conclusion, both stories have similar historical