Compare And Contrast Young Goodman Brown And The Minister's Black Veil

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In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short stories “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Minister’s Black Veil” there is an overarching motif of unpardonable sin. Hawthorne, born in Salem Massachusetts in 1804, was born into a struggling Puritan family in which he had never met his father, who died when he was a young boy. The tragedies and hurdles he faced as a child created the vivid imagination and overall grim and unpleasant mood that is present in his writing. Although these stories have very distinctive plots from one another, both contain main characters that are preoccupied in resolving the aspirations and weaknesses of human beings with the divine commandments in order to embody their spiritual and religious values. In both stories, the main characters …show more content…
This negative view of Puritanism that Hawthorne expresses most likely stemmed from the guilt and shame that he felt over having a grandfather that served as a judge in the Salem witch trials, in which many innocent people were killed. During the story when Goodman enters the wilderness, it is apparent that all of his most beloved friends and family, such as Deacon Gookin, Goody Cloyse, the minister, and his own father and grandfather, seem to have a dark and evil side to them. While back in Salem, these people are viewed as the most virtuous and righteous. These conflicting behaviors highlight Hawthorne’s ideas of a more deceitful and hypocritical side of Puritanism. Another way in which Hawthorne expresses his negative views of the Puritan nature is through the use of the devil. For example, the devil has the ability to bring everyone together at the dark mass, regardless of his or her reputation, religious beliefs, societal standing, and race, where they are all welcomed to the communion of their own race. This is Hawthorne’s attempt at expressing the Puritan’s use of religion as a means of segregating their society. The devil is only able to bring these people together through the common similarity that they all share; sin. The message that Hawthorne is trying to portray to readers through these examples is that all people are equals when it comes to sin, and the conceit and superiority that the Puritans exuded throughout history was false, unjust, and
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