Short Stories Comparison

Short Stories Comparison

Introduction

In this essay, I am comparing two fictional short stories “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. I will focus violence and religion in these two stories and will analyse the theme of the story.

Comparison and Contrast

Religion is the major theme in Nathaniel Hawthorne's story "Young Goodman Brown". Although it was written in the 19th century, the story is set 200 years earlier, in a Puritan community in colonial Massachusetts. The Puritans' Massachusetts Bay Colony was a theocracy, meaning a community in which the state is dominated by a church, and civil law has its basis in religious law (Johnson, 1974). In such a place, religion naturally plays a dominant role in many aspects of life.

The story reflects the importance of matters of faith in daily life in that period, with key plot events stressing in particular the social aspects of religion. Goodman Brown, a young member of a Puritan community, leaves his wife Faith one night to embark on a mysterious mission into the forest near his village. On his way out of town he passes the meetinghouse, which is the Puritan place of worship and the center of social life for the community. This landmark serves to remind the reader of the deeply communal nature of the Puritan religion (Hawthorne, 1996). The matter of social interaction in church activities takes on deeper meaning as Brown travels into the woods: He starts out alone but soon encounters other townspeople, all of whom he identifies as members of his church. There is Goody Cloyse, an old woman who had taught Brown his catechism. The young man also spies the town's minister and deacon in the woods. Brown has always thought of his neighbors as pious, upstanding members of the community. Now he is shocked to find them all in the woods on the same dark mission, apparently bound for a witches' mass.

The social aspects of religion in the story encompass history, including that of Brown's family. On his way into the forest, Brown is met by a sinister old man, a devil-like figure holding a staff that resembles a snake. The man tells Brown that he knew his ancestors to be cruel persecutors, not the good Christians Brown had thought them to be. He also tells Brown that many pious-seeming townspeople are stained with secret sin (Johnson, 1974). Brown's conversation ...