Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a very intersting story. I found it to be very suspensful and it kept my interest going. Unlike the Scarlet Letter in which I found myslef a little bored at times. Even though both stories use the same language; Old English it flowed alot more easier for me than Scarlet Letter.
As I read the story I wanted to see what was going to happen to YGB. I couldn't put the story down. At times I had to look up some of the dialogue but all in all I enjoyed reading it. I felt like I was lost in the Woods with him when he was hearing all the voices laughing and taunting him closer and closer to the communion ceremony. I knew right at the begining that the traveler waiting in the woods was the Devil luring YGB to the evil side. When they described his staff, "which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought that it might almost be seen to twist and wiggle itself like a living serpent"(19). To me the symbol of the serpent is the symbol of the devil. I found it intersting that YGB had scruples (doubt to what is right or proper) about his night journey. But the fellow traveler who carried that serpent staff slowly lures him to continue on his journey deeper into the woods.
YGB continues to find ways to second guess what he is doing and worries about his wife he leaves alone at home. His love of his Life. He is conserned on how she would feel about his choice in this journey. How it would affect her and their pure and inoccent beliefs. Maybe he was questioning who he was and how he was living. So maybe that is how temptation took over him.
A few times I had to rethink if he was truely living the moment or if it was all a dream. Your thoughts can truely play tricks on you while reading this story. I read it twice to make sure I understood what I read. Maybe just maybe I need to re think the story to truely understand what was going on in Young Goodman Browns thoughts.
I like the abbreviation you used for Young Goodman Brown's name. I was completely lost the first time I read YGB. I didn't know what was going on... he was running through a forest and having hallucinations of all these crazy things that were going on. I hated the story and wasn't looking forward to reading The Scarlet Letter. However, after re-reading YGB and going through it critically and making annotations I was able to appreciate what a masterful play of words Nathaniel Hawthorne possessed; and was really able to enjoy the story. I've been enjoying the Scarlet Letter, maybe even more so than YGB. I think you just have to get used to reading his style of writing, it's so different from what were used to reading or speaking today. You should check out the in-depth look at YGB and other short stories on InstructorKnapp's blog(if you haven't done so already), It really helped me understand the story. I'd be completely be lost still if I hadn't read that.
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