Dec 26, 2009

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.