Compare And Contrast Young Goodman Brown And Bartleby The...

The Prejudices of Young Goodman Brown and Bartleby the Scrivener The story of Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne occurs in the 1600’s and takes place in Salem, a town located in the northeastern side of Boston, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony that was established by the Puritan settlers. Bartleby the Scrivener, by Herman Melville, is set in New York in 1853 in a law office staffed with peculiar men. Both stories have some prejudice aspects. The definition of prejudice is â€Å"preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience† (â€Å"Prejudice†). In Young Goodman brown the issues of prejudice center around the preconceived ideas of evil and witches. Young Goodman Brown is allegorical because it is about a man who is put†¦show more content†¦Hawthorne relates his own experience to share the life of Brown, and he also uses internal conflict to explore Young Goodman Brown’s identity crisis. In the beginning there was a con flict between the husband and wife. There is a slight conflict between the husband and wife as Faith fears danger and does not want Young Goodman Brown to leave her during the night, and this causes the distance between them. It then escalates into a conflict between the good and evil in the world when Young Goodman Brown meets the devil in the forest. Youngman Goodman Brown is lodged on the belief of corruption since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden after sinning against God, man has been led on the path of sin and wretchedness. This is a major theme as illustrated in the book as an allegory in that man is presented in the image of sin and of a polluted heart. Allegory is used by the presence of a man who ‘resembles himself in all aspects and that he carries a black serpent-shaped staff† (Melville 35). This is a clear indication of evil in that the blackness of the staff and the serpent are used to illustrate evil and the powers behind evil. He accepts the staff made especially for him by his â€Å"replica,† which enables him to float around. In addition, the literature uses imagery in that the name Young Goodman Brown is used to indicate the innocence and naivety. On the other hand, the name Goodman is used to illustrate the company of a simple