Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown †A Psychological Short Story Essay exa

Young Goodman Brown a mental Story Let us discuss the psychological aspect of Nathaniel Hawthornes writing as evidenced in his tale Young Goodman Brown. beak Conn in Finding a Voice in an new Nation explains Hawthornes mix of psychology and theology. His chosen terrain lay amongst the realms of theology and psychology, and allegory provided the means of his explorations. . . . Concerned with individuals as specimens or types, he endowed his characters with solemnly stylized features and then studied their anxiety, or doubt, or guilt. He placed them amid settings and objects that gave symbolic expression to their inward states (83-84). Henry Seidel Canby in A Skeptic Incompatible with His Time and His Past talks about the value of Hawthornes literary psychology This irreverent generation of the 1950s has mocked at Hawthornes struggling souls who torture themselves over peccadilloes like adultery and ar morally wrecked by obsessions that (so it is assumed) any good psychoa nalyst could remove. . . . an reviewer of both epochs might add that the value of his literary psychology lies not in the deeds analyzed but in the picture of a struggle between right hand and wrong where the state of mind of the characters in conflict is immensely significant without regard to the rightness of what they think right or the wrongness of what they think wrong (62). There is probably unanimity among literary critics that Hawthorne is a psychological writer. Consider some of their statements chosen at random from various critiques of Hawthorne Stanley T. Williams in Hawthornes Puritan Mind says What he wrote of New England was . . . .the subconscious mind... .... Hawthorne as Poet. In Hawthorne A Collection of life-sustaining Essays, edited by A.N. Kaul. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966. Lewis, R. W. B. The Return into Time Hawthorne. In Hawthorne A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by A.N. Kaul. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, Inc., 196 6. Martin, Terence. Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York Twayne Publishers Inc., 1965. Swisher, Clarice. Nathaniel Hawthorne a Biography. In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA Greenhaven Press, 1996. Wagenknecht, Edward. Nathaniel Hawthorne The Man, His Tales and Romances. New York Continuum issue Co., 1989. Williams, Stanley T. Hawthornes Puritan Mind. In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA Greenhaven Press, 1996.