The Allegory in Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown Essay -- Young Goodman

The Allegory in Young Goodman Brown It is the purpose of this essay to supply that Nathaniel Hawthornes 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 cause to make coherent sense on the literal, or primary, take of signification, and at the same time to signify a second, correlated order of signification (5). Yvor Winters in Maules Curse, or Hawthorne and the line of Allegory says that Hawthorne is essentially an allegorist (11). Stanley T. Williams in Hawthornes 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 hold on and adequately reflect the new complexity of mans life, he Hawthorne molded the venerable in his case directly inherited representative method into the modern technique of symbolism (3). It is quite obvi ous from the call of the characters in the short story that their names are contrived to progress a secondary signification. Goodman is on the primary level a transparent 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 deflection 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(prenominal) implicates the governor in devilish deeds Can this be so cried Goodman Brown, with... ...t/nh/nhhj1.html Kaul, A.N. Introduction. In Hawthorne A Collection of hypercritical 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. Engl ewood 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. Hawthornes Puritan Mind. In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA Greenhaven Press, 1996. Winters, Yvor. Maules 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.