The story line of the desire for truth leading one into madness has played out in many books, movies, and music. They use this technique to analyze effects that the truth can have on one's moral compass. This desire for knowledge and closure play out in Hamlet, Frankenstein, and Young Goodman Brown by demonstrating their journey into madness and giving up on loved ones. In these stories the truth is the ultimate desires of Hamlet, Frankenstein and Goodman Brown, suggesting that the desire for the truth will lead to one's downfall.
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, there are many contributing factors of Hamlet’s desire for truth and downfall. Starting with the desire for truth he exclaims, “Oh, answer me! Don't make me explode …show more content…
Nathaniel Hawthorne writes, “‘Faith!’ shouted Goodman Brown, in a voice of agony and desperation; and the echoes of the forest mocked him, crying, ‘Faith! Faith!’ as if bewildered wretches were seeking her all through the wilderness” ( 5 ). The author uses repetition in this sentence by repeating the name Faith. He is doing this to show the effect that the desire for truth can have on oneself. Goodman Brown is crying out for his loved one because if he loses Faith then he will lose it all. The author uses repetition to show the deeper meaning of Faith. When the author refers to madness in this story he says, “‘My Faith is gone!’ cried he, after one stupefied moment. ‘There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil! for to thee is this world given’” ( 6 ). The author is using metaphor in this passage. He is using Goodman Brown’s lover Faith to represent his faith in good and evil. He shows true insanity here because he shows Goodman Brown losing his Faith. This adds to the story as a whole because it lets you see the deeper meaning in this story, which is that Goodman Brown lost his Faith from losing himself, in the lies that his life was built