Hawthorne and Melville

Our reading for Friday of this week was Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown and Melville's review of that story. To begin with Hawthorne sets his character, Goodman Brown, on a journey that we know from the start is "evil" but for some reason he must go anyways. This is the start of a theme that all people will sin even if they don't want to. Brown even says that after tonight he will never do evil again and that he wants to be at home with his wife who is the embodiment of youth and innocence. As he continues his journey he meets up with a man who it turns out to be is Satan. The settings being at night and on a path are clearly symbolic as darkness signifying the sinister journey ahead. Paths are mentioned throughout the Bible and they determine where you go in life, by following Satan's path he is going to hell, which is how his life turns out to be. On the path he learns that everyone is sinful and in the service of the devil no matter how good they seem to be and even his wife is shown to be bad. He seems to wake up out of a dream but the rest of his life is influenced by this journey, never can he trust or be with someone again like he used to. He dies not alone but unhappy and in this way his life was truly his hell. This story presents a depressing view on life that all are sinners in life, but it also serves as a warning that worrying about sin can't be what matters most to a person. Goodman Brown saw that all were sinners and it consumed him. It is more important to live well and accept that people have faults.

Melville praised Hawthorne's work as equal to or better than Shakespeare's works. Page after page of laudatory words appear to give Hawthorne high honors. However, once one looks closely at Melville's work it shows its true intent is to prove that American authors are every bit as good as British or French authors. He says that if America would be patrons of American authors they soon would be better than the best of contemporary or past authors in the world. He also instructs American authors to be the best writers they can be and not to worry about criticisms about being imitators or failing in originality. It is clearly a work of a man trying to prove to the world that there are American authors that are great and he has found one named Hawthorne.