Young Goodman Brown Exposed In The Birthmark And Barn Burning

Nathaniel Hawthorn was a great write being the writer of various famous books, based most of his work on personal experience. Many of his books such as The Birthmark and Barn Burning contain elements that can only be placed by someone who has felt a portion of it. Hawthorn’s story ‘Young Goodman Brown’, we see a man named Goodman Brown, who says goodbye to his wife Faith outside his home in Salem Village as he sets off on a road through a gloomy forest. The life people lived during this period, were that of shortage of food, water, and illnesses without a cure, but the major problem people had was a fear of evil. The arrangement of the story as Goodman Brown was talking with his wife, tells us that she felt concern for her husband knowing what he is embarking on is a dangerous quest as the quote “prithee, put off your journey until sunrise and sleep in your own bed tonight” (Hawthorn 1) was used.
The quote “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 close immediately behind them” (Hawthorn 2) gives us an example of personification. The idea of trees closing could be seen as Goodman Brown’s fears manifesting in the form of hallucination, or him seeing the surroundings in a perspective point of view, which he himself could not explain. As Goodman Brown goes deeper into the forest is said how he felt as though an Indian or even the devil himself was lurking behind each tree. This type of reasoning was due to the kind of knowledge the puritan community imposed on Goodman Brown which led him into believing evil had a physical form, and it was this evil that was lurking in the