Young Goodman Brown And Transcendentalism Analysis

During the mid-1800’s transcendentalists and anti-transcendentalists made up the literary society. The idea of realism was just starting to break through with the help of some quite famous writers, one being Nathaniel Hawthorne. Also happening during this period was the end of the civil war, and the start of reconstruction. Reconstruction was a time of economic, political, and social change. Some events that occurred during this time period remain relevant today, because problems such as economic and racial justice and protecting citizens’ rights remain unsolved. Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American writer born in Salem, Massachusetts. He was part of the American transcendentalists, and was an American novelist as well as short story writer. “Young Goodman Brown” was one of Hawthorne’s most famous short stories, it was said to have been the preview of The Scarlet Letter. The short story is about a young couple who recently got married and the husband comes face to face with the devil. Goodman Brown meets the Devil in the woods and ends up falling asleep. After awakening the next morning in the woods, Brown is a changed man. He goes to Salem …show more content…
Due to immigration there as an ever expanding population, who were ever interested in understanding the rapid shifts in literary culture (Stowe). At the time realism became the popular literary style in America. Realism was the utter opposite of romanticism, which presented the world in a much more idealized manner. Realism sought to represent everyday people in an un-idealized and accurate manner. Realists focused on a specific moment in time and described it in great detail. William Dean Howells was the first American author to bring a realist aesthetic to the literature of the United States (Stowe). Another early American realist popular then and still today is Mark Twain, who is the author of Huckleberry