Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories Reviews

• 
  Leonard Gaya

  Young Goodman Brown (1835) is one of the early examples of American gothic stories, published around the same period as Washington Irving’s
  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Edgar Allan Poe’s
  tales. This short story, a forerunner of horror fiction, is about a young man from Salem, MA, who ventures into a menacing forest at night. He makes several sinister encounters and eventually witnesses a satanic bacchanalia. When he travels home the following day, he is a changed man.
  
  Hawthorne himself descended from a New England Puritan family, and one of his ancestors was involved in the infamous Salem witch trials back in the 17th-century. In a way, this tale is probably an attempt for the author of
  The Scarlet Letter to set a score with that murky family history and recreate the atmosphere of the time: the archaic vernacular, the religious hypocrisy, the racism against Indigenous peoples, the violent excesses.
  
  The story uses tropes common in folk stories like Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel or Vasilisa the Beautiful: all these characters venture into the wilderness and discover some manifestation of Evil. The descent into a menacing underworld also harks back to the motif of the nekyia or katabasis, present in the Greek myths of
  Orpheus,
  Odysseus,
  Aeneas or even Dante’s
  Comedy (cf. the journey into the “selva oscura”, the dark forest that leads into the Inferno).
  
  One fascinating aspect of Hawthorne’s story is that his hero ends up meeting his townsfolks, transformed into depraved, lecherous devils, cavorting under the spell of sexual hysteria. Seeing these familiar figures in those disturbing circumstances works as the revelation of a horrible and unspeakable truth, like tearing the veil of everyday perception and seeing the world as it is: a sinister, atrocious place, teeming with depraved, pagan demons. This theme strongly influenced authors like
  H.P. Lovecraft.
  
  Furthermore, Goodman Brown also meets several evil versions of himself during this dark epiphany: his adventure is a revelation about the corruption of the world as much as a discovery of the sinful nature of his soul. Indeed, a topic that may appeal to many readers: the lovers of horror stories as well as those well-versed in the psychoanalytical theory of the unconscious.
  
  ***
  
  Also included in this collection, The Birthmark (1843) is another example of Hawthorne’s gothic inspiration. The story feels a bit static and overwrought, but the subject is fascinating.
  
  The protagonist is a prototype of the “mad scientist”, akin to Mary Shelley’s
  Frankenstein character, and the story describes this man’s fixation with a small blemish on his wife’s cheek. This leads him to undertake a disturbing series of experiments to try and remove the spot that, in his perception, ruins her beauty. One can speculate ad libitum on the symbolic meaning of that mark—moral flaw, sin, mortality, phobic obsession...
  
  As the narrator says, “our great creative Mother… permits us, indeed, to mar, but seldom to mend, and, like a jealous patentee, on no account to make”. In short, God may have created the world, but don’t try this at home.
  Descartes said it all: “il faut changer ses désirs plutôt que l’ordre du monde”.
• 
  Sergio

  This book... that was a delight! I loved Hawthorne's style.
  He tells of things horrible and beautiful. There's darkness and there's light.
  Will reread this collection surely.
• 
  Andrew

  Now I will be honest and I will admit I will struggle here. This edition I will admit is not quite the one I have - yes mine is the Dover Thrift edition (bought from a shall village shop that had the entire series, which I wished I had bought more off. Sadly when I returned the shop and the display where no longer there) However it seems this format/edition does not exist any more so I have had to settle for the next best (and somehow this is where the ISBN sent me too?)
  
  Anyway the reason why I am going to struggle is that I am not by nature a classics readers and so will probably do MR Hawthorne a total disservice (after reading the notes in the book too I totally feel ill equipped the comment).
  
  However the stories in this book are fascinating. Yes they give an insight in to the writings of the time which for someone who is interested in history but has not got the time (ironic) to go through all the boring bits or the academia finds other ways to explore the past. Stories in this book are a perfect example where they are clearly creations of the time they were written in.
  
  The title story is a perfect example of this (Young Goodman Brown) where you have a clear demonstration of what community and reputation (especially religious) hold, something that is almost unrecognisable in todays society it feels. After all if the Devil was to tempt you what would he have to stump up today as compared to times past.
  
  This book is was not really my forte but I do recognise the vision especially considering when it was written but not only that you can see the mind that went on create works that are revered by both scholars and authors alike (for example Edgar Allan Poe).
  
  As usual Dover Thrift have presented a book that tantalises and temps - they are in general quite short books to show case and tempt you to delve further. Sadly my collection is somewhat limited (I have a number of Jack London books) but one day I will go back and explore some more.
• 
  Manray9

  Young Goodman Brown & Other Short Stories are collected here from Nathaniel Hawthorne's volumes of Twice-Told Tales, Mosses from the Old Manse and The Snow Image produced between 1832 and 1854. The tales are representative of American literature in the first half of the 19th century. They mirror the works of Poe and Irving with emphasis on the clash of science and nature and the collision of reason with the supernatural. The best known of this collection is Young Goodman Brown, a story kept alive by English teachers around the country. I found it predictable, too Poe-like, and exceeded in skillfulness of prose by the excellent Rappaccini's Daughter.
  
  I visualized Rappaccini's Daughter as an early-sixties technicolor horror movie with Vincent Price as Rappaccini, a dark handsome "B" actor such as James Darren as Giovanni, and a ravishing raven-haired Hollywood starlet of limited talent as Beatrice. True drive-in fare circa 1964.
  
  Young Goodman Brown & Other Short Stories is a peek through the window of American literary history. As such, it earned a solid Three Stars from me.
• 
  Bettie

  
  
  Dr Heidegger's Experiment
  The Birthmark
  Young Goodman Brown
  Rappaccini's Daughter
  Roger Malvin's Burial
  The Artist of the Beautiful
  My Kinsman, Major Molyneaux
  
  
• 
  Laura

  Okay, I haven't read every one of these stories, and my rating is only for the title story. Here's the thing: Young Goodman Brown is actually based on my great-something-grandfather Joseph Ring and his rather ignoble role in one of the infamous Salem witch trials. Hawthorne's account of Young Goodman Brown's supernatural encounter in the woods matches almost exactly my ancestor's testimony recorded in the trial of Susanna Martin. It is a fascinating and disturbing glimpse of the fear, paranoia, and "siege mentality" that characterized much of colonial American life.
• 
  Emily (Obsessed Reader)

  I ONLY READ YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN.
  
  When first reading this for my gothic lit. class I was not at all enjoying it. It felt hard to read, and I wasn't understanding everything that was going on. However, after delving deeper into the meanings behind the story and analyzing it, I was able to enjoy it and appreciate it more. I think it is an interesting tale of good versus evil and understanding that no human is purely good. I would definitely recommend researching the meaning behind the story before reading it to make the experience more enjoyable.
• 
  Sparrow .

  Hawthorne loves mad scientists, who are also alchemists. (Nathaniel seems incapable of distinguishing between science and magic. And 200 years later, we Americans still have this trait.) All of his stories feel like they take place indoors, though usually they don’t. (“Young Goodman Brown" is set in a claustrophobic fogbound forest.) A dangerous doom hangs over every character – and sometimes when the doom comes, the person is relieved, liberated. These are fables, but also memoir. Hawthorne hates Christianity more than even Shakespeare.
  
  In junior high school, I was bored to dyspepsia by “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” and now it seems as perfect as a van Eyck. No one should read Hawthorne before the age of 62.
  
  Opening at random:
  
  “By all appreciable signs, they loved; they had looked love with eyes that conveyed the holy secret from the depths of one soul into the depths of the other, as if it were too sacred to be whispered by the way; they had even spoken love in those gushes of passion when their spirits darted forth in articulated breath like tongues of long-hidden flame…”
  
  [From “Rappaccini’s Daughter”]
  
• 
  Evelyn

  Young Goodman Brown always knocks me sideways. Hawthorne's prose style is more straightforward here than in many other stories (haven't read Black Veil in a while-- it's not in this edition-- but I think its similar power is heightened by comparably plain language). The title story is a master class in how to carry the reader from the waking world of the everyday into the nightmarish alternate reality of our worst fears about human nature. The allegory could seem heavy handed or far fetched, but Hawthorne draws you in and makes you see the connection between the surface and what lies beyond. The pink ribbons trembling in the cap of Brown's wife Faith get me every time. Prefer this far and above the other stories.
• 
  Inge

  Utterly confusing.
• 
  Sarah Brousseau

  Book 02/100: Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Full of interesting stories, Hawthorne writes in an interesting fashion. It really keeps me on the edge of my seat and wanting to understand more of the era.
• 
  Dean Oken

  this happens to me every time i smoke weed
• 
  Nicole aka FromReading2Dreaming

  I have to say I enjoyed these short stories more than I enjoy poems. But again, classic works of literature just aren't for me.
• 
  N.T. Embeast

  My feelings about this book are much less impressive than those of the last I read for this class of mine. Did this book have a couple of good tales to tell? Eh... I suppose in some ways it did. Was it something that I enjoyed? ...not completely. I read it because it was there to read. Not much of it had me excited, let alone even engaged too comfortably. I found my mind wandered very frequently during this read, and though most of the stories Hawthorne wrote were well done, at least in terms of vocabulary and actual plot, they were also all... rather dull.
  
  I think out of all of them, "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," "The Birthmark," "Rappaccini's Daughter," and "The Artist of the Beautiful" were my favorites. But did they elicit from me anything other than an admiration for the concepts that Hawthorne presented? ...not really. The man can tell a story--that is unquestionable. He can also provide the mind with many deep and profound thoughts to dwell on, to mull over--food for the mind and not just mere trifles to read for entertainment. And from the point of view of one looking to increase their mental capacity, or enjoy writing for the artistic sake, this would probably be a very good addition to someone's library.
  
  Yet nonetheless I found that for all that I enjoyed this book... it did not blow me away. There is an underlying tone in all these stories that elicits no emotions--no reader reaction. It is the tale told a child by an elderly man who continues to babble even when the child has little to no understanding of what they are saying. And though I'm not saying that Hawthorne is impossible to read, or even that he's difficult to understand (for his stories were quite straightforward for the most part), I am saying that he has very little claim over the skillful use of tone. He talks, and it's the same note from the beginning of the book to the ending, even when the stories change from one variety to another. And such a monotony of tone throughout various tales that have the potential to elicit so much life makes the book (however short it is) drag on even longer than necessary.
  
  *Shrugs* It's a mixed bag of goodies. It presents you with wonderful concepts and ideas to entertain, but I feel that the execution isn't something that fits the excitement that most of those ideas conjure up within me. It's a case where personally--many may disagree with me on this--the storyteller's voice doesn't suit the tale he tells, regardless his eloquence in the conveyance. But for the ideas, it's still a great book worth picking up, and something that you should definitely try out just for the experience. Take it out of your library and give it a read-through! You'll come away a little more full for the knowledge and thoughtfulness it brings you.
• 
  Stephan Peters

  This is a difficult review, as many of the stories are awesome, and some not so awesome. These stories of Hawthorne are not really as good if read through quickly once.
  They really need to be read, mulled over, and re-read. Then they are awesome as you realize some of the nuances and some of what he is really trying to say.
  ... and then they become AWESOME - like "Oh Wow! That's what he was getting at!" awesome.
  
  Dr. Heidegger's Experiment - 4 Stars - What would people really be like if they could "do it all over again?"
  
  The Birthmark - 5 Stars - What happens when "science" conflicts with myth and faerie?
  
  Young Goodman Brown - 5 Stars - How well do you really know your neighbours, before and after offering your soul to the devil?
  
  Rappaccini's Daughter - 5 Stars - What if Man creates his own Eden? Who is evil, who is good?
  
  Roger Malvin's Burial - 5 Stars - What if you leave your lover's father to die, at his request, and with a blessing on you and your daughter? And break s promise you made on his deathbed?
  
  The Artist of the Beautiful - 3 Stars - I suspect it deserves more, and I just didn't understand what Hawthorne was trying to say. I found it long and boring. With a cast of characters from a Tenessee Williams play.
  
  My Kinsman, Major Molineux - 4 Stars - At first reading American Propaganda; "You can do anything you want regardless of family or background." At later readings, why was Major Molineux really found in the situation he was? Where is the true evil?
• 
  Cassa

  I'm recommending this more for "Rappaccini's Daughter" than the rest. "Young Goodman Brown" was decent but a little over-the-top in its moral. I don't recall "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" enough to comment, and I don't think I've read the rest. But "Rappaccini's Daughter" was a lovely read. I'm a sucker for tragic love in any form, and the fact that this story added a creepy horror/psychological-thriller aspect to it all with some early sci-fi made it all the better. Probably one of the better classic works I've been forced to read in class, and one of the very few I've truly enjoyed outside Shakespeare.
• 
  Madly Jane

  Hawthorne is the master of ambiguity, a lost art form in modern fiction. I constantly reread his work and wrote a college paper on The Scarlet Letter, which so impressed me after studying that I wondered how he made such a complex tale look so deceptively simple. His work definitely is a major influence on my current writing.
• 
  Jamie

  wasn't much the content that did it for me, but his personification of natural force. although it's a bit arrogant to ascribe human traits to things around us, it still creeps me the hell out when its done well. same thing I like about Steinbeck.
• 
  Julia

  This is a collection of short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Most are pretty creepy and fun. Good fun literature.
• 
  Laurel

  this could be the story responsible for the shudder evoked by the titles "goodman", and particularly... "goodie" for a woman. i don't know why, but calling a woman "goodie" gives me the willlllies.
  
• 
  Tara

  "The Birthmark" is one of my favorite short stories. If fact I named one of my dogs after the main character.
• 
  Mel

  The Artist of the Beautiful has made me cry more than once.
• 
  Erin

  Young Goodman Brown is the best allegory of all time.
• 
  SeaShore

  I'm interested in the story, “Young Goodman Brown.”
  
  I like Nathaniel Hawthorne's writing. He lived in Salem, Massachusetts. To understand the period a bit better, I wondered about the world in the 1600's and then the 1700's. So much history to traverse. For some humor, read,
  The Wordy Shipmates by
  Sarah Vowell The Puritan migration to New England was marked in its effects in the two decades from 1620 to 1640, after which it declined sharply for a while.
  Also, I considered the reign of Charles I (born 1600, died 1649). He was the son of King James of Scotland. Charles was the monarch of England, Scotland and Ireland. Charles was tried, convicted, and executed for high treason in January 1649. The monarchy was abolished and a republic called the Commonwealth of England was declared. The monarchy was restored to Charles's son, Charles II, in 1660.
  
  What was significant in the 1700's to me was the race to electrify the world: I re-read
  Jill Jonnes's book:
  Empires of Light.
  
  Now for, "Young Goodman Brown", one of the stories in this book:
  Three dark events from the Puritans’ history are mentioned: the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, the Puritan intolerance of the Quakers, and King Philip’s War.
  
  During the Salem Witch Trials, one of the most nightmarish episodes in Puritan history, the villagers of Salem killed twenty-five innocent people who were accused of being witches.
  The witch hunts often involved accusations based on revenge, jealousy, botched child delivery, and other reasons that had little to do with perceived witchcraft.
  
  The Puritan intolerance of Quakers occurred during the second half of the seventeenth century.
  
  Puritans and Quakers both settled in America, hoping to find religious freedom and start their own colonies where they could believe what they wanted to.
  
  However, Puritans began forbidding Quakers from settling in their towns and made it illegal to be a Quaker ; their intolerance soon led to imprisonments and hangings.
  
  King Philip’s War, the final event referenced in Hawthorne’s story, took place from 1675 to 1676 and was actually a series of small skirmishes between Indians and colonists.
  
  Indians attacked colonists at frontier towns in western Massachusetts, and colonists retaliated by raiding Indian villages.
  
  When the colonists won the war, the balance of power in the colonies finally tipped completely toward the Puritans.
  
  These historical events are NOT at the center of the book, “Young Goodman Brown,” which takes place after the events do occur, but the reader gets to know of these little battles .
  
  Example: the names of Goody Cloyse and Martha Carrier, two of the “witches” killed at Salem, are names of two townspeople in Hawthorne's story. The devil refers to seeing Goodman Brown’s grandfather whipping a Quaker in the streets and handing Goodman Brown’s father a flaming torch so that he could set fire to an Indian village during King Philip’s War. By including these references, Hawthorne reminds the reader of the dubious history of Salem Village and the legacy of the Puritans and emphasizes the historical roots of Goodman Brown’s fascination with the devil and the dark side.
  
• 
  Jim Vander Maas

  Nathaniel Hawthorne
  Goodman Brown and Other Stories
  Dover Edition
  
  
  Nate was a writer in the early to mid 19th century with some of his stories set in his ancestors time in the 1600’s. He is heavily influenced by the Salem Witch trials in which his great grandfather as a Puritan judge sentenced women to burn to death. The hypocrisy of the Puritans and the very nature of good and evil is a theme through his stories.
  
  His most famous story Goodman Brown can be interpreted in different ways. Brown’s curiosity causes him to leave his wife “Faith” on night and meet the devil in the forest. Goodman tries to stave off the devil, but curiosity gets the best of him. As he goes deeper into the forest he meets the piety of the town such as a Sunday school teacher and a preacher. They are all headed for the ceremony that initiates them to evil. Goody eventually sees his wife and begs here not to give in to evil.
  
  When he awakes Brown has lost his faith in what is good and mankind. His relationship changes with his wife and he doesn’t trust the piety of the town.
  
  Was this just a dream? Is it true that some of the most highly regarded citizens are evil? Are we all evil? Can your faith in God not be influenced by other people. The answer my friend is blowin in the wind.
  
  The story I liked best was the Artist of the Beautiful because it had to do with the values of society toward art. Owen is a clockmaker apprentice who has a penchant for miniature details of mechanics and is working on a secret project. He takes over the shop from Peter Hovenden who as a lovely daughter named Annie, that Owen falls in love with. Owen is too busy with his secret project to be good at his job. He is chastised by the town as being odd. A contrasting character is the town blacksmith Robert Danforth. Annie’s father speaks for the towns values when he says “ It is good and wholesome thing to depend on main strength and reality, to earn living with brawn like a blacksmith. A watch maker gets his brain puzzled by wheels within wheels and his eyesight fails. The very thing he needs to earn a living. His delicate tenderness and creativity are not valued by Annie either who ends up marrying the blacksmith and having a child. Meanwhile Owen goes into a period of alcoholic depression and comes out as a top watchmaker and clock setter for the town, yet giving up his dream. He goes back to pursuing his dream and makes a lifelike butterfly. Annie’s dad Peter thinks that creating a butterfly is evil and will kill Owens soul. Owen succeeds in his task and presents the butterfly to Annie and the blacksmith Robert as a wedding gift a year late. They are enchanted by how real the mechanical butterfly is, when it lands on their little childs hands the boy crushes it. It doesn’t bother Owen because he is proud of his achievement of rising above public opinion and creating art.
  
  Many of the stories have similar themes but are written beautifully. Much more interesting now than in high school.