Now you don’t see it, now you do. As Gene Tierney once said, “When you have spent an important part of your life playing ‘Let’s Pretend’, it’s often easy to see symbolism where none exists.” As people may recall, there exist thousands of stories, novels, and plays that use symbolism as their main element. Now, what is symbolism? From the etymology of the word, symbolism comes from the French word ‘symbolisme’ and it is the practice of representing things with symbols. Furthermore, symbols come from the Latin word ‘symbolum’ and it is a thing that represents or stands for something else. Although symbols must be examined carefully, most stories (in this case ‘Young Goodman Brown’, ‘The Chrysanthemums’, and ‘Boys and Girls’) are rich in them …show more content…
Both ‘The Chrysanthemums’ (by John Steinbeck from California, United States of America) and ‘Boys and Girls’ (by Alice Munro from Ontario, Canada) were stories made in the twentieth century, while ‘Young Goodman Brown” (by Nathaniel Hawthorne from Massachusetts, United States of America) was written during the ninetieth century. Evidently, the time by which the stories were written is extremely relevant because they provide an idea of what was the environment by which the author was composing. For instance, Nathaniel Hawthorne lived in Salem, the famous city of witches. This suggests the reader that Hawthorne had lived in the location where the witch trials were made. The author explicitly describes Satanism and witchcraft in ‘Young Goodman Brown’, for example: “Let us hear which will laugh loudest. Think not to frighten me with your deviltry. Come witch, come wizard, come Indian powwow, come devil himself, and here comes Goodman Brown. You may as well fear him as he fears you.” Surprisingly, this environment where he lived had led Hawthorne to think that every man who walks the Earth, either if he is good or malevolent, has a fiend in their soul. Apparently, Goodman Brown had to be feared among the devils and the witches that were in the ceremony even though he was good at