Use Of Allegory And Irony In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

The author uses literary elements such as symbolism, allegory, and irony to help the reader understand the theme. However the story does lack depth of characterization, a compelling story, and a point of view that allows the reader to know more of what is going on. The author still gets his point across while using the elements that are shown throughout the story. This short story deserves literary merit because it achieves its central purpose. Which is to inform the reader further on the theme. The short story, “Young Goodman Brown” achieves literary merit as a piece of literary fiction because the use of symbolism, allegory, and irony support Hawthorne’s theme which is the loss of innocence is inevitable because everyone sins.
The story successfully conveys the theme, someone cannot prevent
Irony is “ a term which has range of meanings that all involve some sort of discrepancy or incongruity”(334), which is a lack of similarity between two or more facts, as they are not in harmony with the surroundings or other aspects of the story. All three kinds of irony are present in “Young Goodman Brown.” Firstly there is verbal irony in the names of the characters. Young Goodman Brown’s name is a perfect example of this because his name suggests that he is pure and innocent, as talked about with the symbolism, but the irony of his name is that he actually is not because he was the one that chose to go into the woods, “My father never went into the woods on such an errand nor his father before him. We have been a race of honest men and good Christians since the days of the martyrs. And I shall be the first of the name of Brown that ever took this path and kept-”(301). Goodman Brown is talking with the Devil here. He believes that the past generations of his family have been very pure, and that now he will break the tradition. He will do this by continuing further into the woods with his “evil