Young Goodman Brown

1
Young Goodman Brown

• by Nathaniel Hawthorne

2
Allegory

• An allegory is a story with a second distinct
  meaning partially hidden behind its literal or
  visible meaning, in which characters and events
  are intended as parallels to characters/ideas and
  events on another level.
• Allegories rely on symbols (concrete objects that
  represent abstract ideas) and personification
  (giving abstract ideas human characteristics), as
  well as archetypes (recognizable character types,
  settings, plot situations, etc that appear in
  other examples of literature)

3
For each question, take notes and find at least
one example from the text.

• What characters seem to be personification of
  larger ideas? How does this help us understand
  the story?
• What objects do you think are symbolic? How?
• What aspects of the settings might be archetypal?
  How?
• Re-read the last two paragraphs of the story.
  What does your group understand as the
  allegorical (parallel/partially hidden) meaning
  of the story? What are we to learn from Young
  Goodman Brown?