Short Story Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Short Story Analysis - Essay Example The basic assumption of the current report is that through a combination of tone and setting, Hawthorne sets up a theme of growing unreality and sin in the work, in which Goodman Brown goes from a lucid, sane person, to a forever-changed witness of evil and sin. This response can be applied to the Hawthorne short-story quite easily, as it seems that Goodman Brown is also undergoing a sort of intuitive emotional struggle throughout much of his walk in the forbidding and unnatural woods. The story focuses more on the immediacy of these impressions than it does on the later evaluation and interpretation of them by its protagonist, who is seen to be effectively closed-off after his dream/experience. hides his intentions from both Faith and the reader, so it is effectively a mystery as to where he is going. This effectively draws the reader further into the story because their curiosity is piqued as to Brown’s destination. â€Å"What a wretch am I to leave her on such an errand!† Brown cries internally and mysteriously, â€Å"Methought as she spoke there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is to be don tonight. But no, no; twould kill her to think of it† (Hawthorne, p. 375). The protagonist heads off into the wilderness. through, and closed immediately behind† (Hawthorne). The narrator is also increasingly closed-off and isolated from the good of society as he walks. â€Å"It was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveller knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that, with lonely footsteps, he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude† (Hawthorne). As noted, it seems that Goodman Brown is undergoing a sort of emotional struggle of resistance throughout much of his walk in the unnatural woods and wilderness. The story focuses more on his impressions of resisting evil in the woods than it does on interpretation of these