The purpose of this work is to compare journeys of the main characters of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown” and Washington Irving’s short story “Rip Van Winkle.” The first story takes place in Puritan New England at the end of the 17th century. A young man named Brown goes into the woods at dusk and, after spending the night there, returns to his wife inwardly a much-changed man. The main character of the second short story is a resident of a village near New York, who has been sleeping in the mountains for 20 years. He returns home to find out that all his acquaintances have died. This character has become a symbol of a man who is behind the times. However, if Hawthorne’s character after his journey changes much, Irving’s hero remains the same.
In Hawthorne’s short story there must be a good reason to leave the house at dusk, but the author does not give a clear answer to the question of why Brown went to the forest. At the beginning of the trip, the world is bright and pure for the main character. However, he moves away from this colorful world into the night forest, while experiencing remorse and doubts, tries to force himself to stop, referring to the positive examples of people who surround him. Yet, on the way, he meets his spiritual mentor, who turns out to be a witch and hurries to an unholy gathering, where other people (including his wife) Brown knows are also heading. He sees that people with different social positions and reputations gather together at night: “It was strange to see that the good shrank not from the wicked, not were the sinners abashed by the saints” (Hawthorne, 2012, p. 31). At the last moment, the scene appears to be a dream, but an ominous dream, after which Brown changes forever. He becomes pensive, gloomy, sad, and loses faith in people.
It is possible to say that in the short story “Rip Van Winkle,” Irving, like Hawthorne, uses the method of contrast. The reader sees a picture of the past before the main character falls asleep, and then a picture of the present – after he wakes up. Rip is disconcerted, having come from a quiet colonial past to a time of industrial progress, where everything has changed. When he wakes up, he sees that nature is different: a small brook has become a noisy flow, the forest has become impassable. People have also altered: “The very character of the people seemed changed. There was a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity” (Irving, 2009, p. 28). However, unlike Brown, Rip himself has not changed after his journey, his character is the same after the magic dream – he is still a lazy, chatty person.
Besides, everything Brown saw in the forest during his journey – demons, wizards, witches, and all people – is a projection of his consciousness. Having gone into the woods, Brown (unlike Rip Van Winkle in Irving) does not manage to hide from his wife, relatives, ancestors, and neighbors. The forest is the dark side of his soul, where his entire world, with all its inhabitants, is placed.
Thus, both characters make a kind of journey, but Brown loses happiness and joy after seeing at the witches’ sabbath all those whom he had considered as models of righteousness and virtue. The morning after the terrible night, Brown asks himself if everything that has happened was just a nightmare, but doubts since then do not leave the main character for the rest of his life. As for Rip Van Winkle, after his journey, he does not change and becomes a person disconnected from reality, and loses touch with his own time.
References
- Hawthorne, N. (2012). Young Goodman Brown and other short stories. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.
- Irving, W. (2009). Rip Van Winkle: A legend of the Kaatskill Mountains. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott.