In the early eighteen hundreds, literature in the Americas started a revolution of style in upcoming authors. Authors started to look towards nature for symbolism and society as a source of sin. The underlined meaning in most of these stories was meant to leave the reader with a new perspective of their personal lives and society as a whole. Three stories that use this particular technique are Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” Edgar Allen Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher,” and Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle.“Young Goodman Brown”, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a story of a man named Goodman Brown, who is of strong Puritan belief. Goodman Brown leaves his wife, Faith, to travel into the depths of the woods one dark night led by a stranger. Goodman Brown is led to some secret meeting in the woods, where some of his fellow villagers are present. At this point in the story Goodman brown discovers that he is about to unravel hidden parts of the villagers’ lives. “This night it shall be granted to you to know their secret deeds…”(946). Goodman Brown feels out of place and worried that his fellow Puritans would have secret hidden sins. The conflict for Goodman Brown comes in his decision whether he should join in the circle of sin and be like the rest of his village or hold true to his beliefs and reject any attempt to be persuaded. The climax of the story comes when Goodman Brown decides to stick by his religion and not to enter the circle of sin even though his wife, Faith, is a part of the sinning group. “Faith! Faith!…look up to heaven and resist the wicked one”(947). The denouement of Goodman Brown is tragic in an off beat sense. Goodman Brown holds to his beliefs like most people would be expected to, but his beliefs reflect the way he feels towards others in his society. The only person that felt any different from that n...
