Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories (Thrift Editions)

This book arrived without issue & the story is fabulous. I read it years ago & was anxious to read it again. I passed it on to my children who also enjoyed reading Young Goodman Brown.

Young Goodman Brown is an allegory about the recognition of evil as the nature of human society. Hawthorne cleverly gives characters names such as "Goodman" and "Faith" to depict irony in the Puritan society. The story is about Browns loss of faith and the discovery of how people are viewed by society vs who they really are. Hawthorne is a brilliant writer who uses colloquial expressions and diction to enhance the setting. It is a tale that exposes the great contradiction of the Puritan way of life. The other short stories are magnificent as well!

Revisiting Nathaniel Hawthorne in Young Goodman Brown and other stories reveals what you probably didn’t see when reading this collection in junior high. Hawthorne’s unease with the body (the female body in particular) sex, and sensual pleasure, is the overriding orientation of nearly all these tales.Take the story “The Birth-Mark,” ostensibly about the failed quest for human perfection, it also reveals a crippling sense of unease regarding women as embodied creatures -- fully human and therefore fully flawed.Read with an adult eye, these stories take on a whole new, menacing tone.

An incredible bargain and wonderful tales to boot, vice and virtue were never more complex or interwoven as in these Hawthorne tales. All of his stories speak to the irreversible errors of man, well not altogether irreversible. There is redemption and resolve but not for all his characters. If you are looking for spiritually driven fabulously intriguing stories, look no further. Edgar Allan Poe has a fierce rival.

I bought this for my mother but spent the weekend reading through these stories again. If you are wanting to get into Hawthorne but are not ready to read his full length novels, this is a great place to start.