Allegory In Young Goodman Brown

Allegory is a literary element authors use to represent aspects of culture and ambiguity to leave options open to the reader concerning what happens in the story. In “Young Goodman Brown,” Nathaniel Hawthorne’s utilization of allegory and ambiguity creates an effect of interest and inquisitive leaving the reader with unanswered questions, but nonetheless to assume as much as possible. The whole short story is considered as an allegorical tale which can function as an allegory of the fall of mankind or the loss of innocence. In the story Hawthorne, depicts a young Puritan 's discovery that evil exists in all men. The story centers on Goodman Brown’s journey to meet the devil in the woods. Goodman Brown can not help himself from wanting to know what the mysterious forest may contain. Later, Goodman Brown is rewarded for his curiosity with information that changes his life drastically. He is an innocent person, yet he decides to meet up with the devil. Goodman Brown’s loss of innocence happens when he turns his back on everything that he had loved and cared for when he returns from the forest. He changes forever and hardens his heart against everyone, seeing corruption in everything and everyone. Young Goodman Brown never recognizes that it his soul that becomes blind to God. Less meaningful examples of allegory include the …show more content…
However, Hawthorne gets to the allegory of Goodman Brown’s loss of innocence making the reader understand the main theme. Basically one can even say that Hawthorne used ambiguity to reveal the allegory, which the reader probably couldn’t figure out because it was a little unclear. “Young Goodman Brown” is similar to today’s allegorical stories, which contain lessons or morals that are not necessarily telling the reader what the allegory is. Instead those stories show the lesson rather than stating it in the