Literary Terms in Young Goodman Brown

9/10/11

Literary Terms in Young Goodman Brown.

In Young Goodman Brown, many different literary terms were used throughout the story. Nathaniel Hawthorne hooked the reader with suspense and irony. In this story Nathaniel Hawthorne demonstrates the importantce of using different literary devices as well as how making forshadowing, irony, and other terms cause suspense and make the story better.

A big aspect of Young Goodman Brown is the literary element of dramatic irony. Hawthorne used dramatic irony in many ways. One of the biggest uses of irony in this story is the name of the main characters. Goodman Brown sounds alot like "good man". Also, his wifes name is Faith. This is ironic because in the story both characters portray evil figures active in a demonic ceremony. Irony is also shown when Goodman Brown thinks he is the only one attending the evil ceremony when in fact, pretty much everyone he knows is attending, including his own father, ancestors, preachers, and other religous people of his town. However, the person there who suprised Goodman Brown the most was his own wife, Faith, who had begged him not to go to the ceremony all together.

Hawthorne's use of forshawdowing plays a big role in the story. One of the first uses of forshawdowing is when Faith, Goodman Brown's wife, tells him not to go and that she thinks its a bad idea which in fact it was. Another example of forshawdowing is when Goodman Brown finds Faith's pink ribbon on the trail to the denomic ceremony, which forshadows her attending the ceremony. Forshadowing in this story was important because it caused suspense and kept the reader on the edge of their chair.

Symbolism is an important aspect of this story as well. Right in the beginning of this story, the reader notices the ribbon in Goodman Brown's wife, Faith. Faith's ribbon is in her hair and it's pink, which symbolizes innocence and purity of her moral values. When Goodman Brown goes and meets the mysterious person near the edge of the woods, the man tempts him to come with hime to the evil ceremony. This symobolizes the devil tempting Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of life. This man also has a staff with a snake on it, which symbolizes evil.

All of these literary elements, plus more, come together to form a very suspensful, ironic, and interesting short story. It shows how curiousity is sometimes dangerous. It demonstrates the importantce of having moral fiber. Most of all, this story illustrates how just one wrong decison can affect someone for the rest of their lives.