Young Goodman Brown | Literary Precedents
As an allegory, "Young Goodman Brown" is part of a tradition which dates to antiquity. Most notably, the story shares affinities with works such as Dante's Divine Comedy (c.1320) and John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (Part I, 1678; Part II, 1684), both of which describe the journey of a good man on a pilgrimage to heaven. Unlike the heroes of these works, however, Goodman Brown succumbs to temptation and does not achieve either peace on earth or a place in heaven. Like most of Hawthorne's work, this story displays several characteristics of Gothic fiction.
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