Isolation In Young Goodman Brown And A Rose For Emily

Nathaniel Hawthorne and William Faulkner's short stories "Young Goodman Brown" and "A Rose for Emily" use morals of the time period to tell a story and teach a lesson. Both short stories are dark and gloomy accounts of the main characters' station in society and their self-imposed isolation. Hawthorn and Faulkner use the characters to describe society as judgmental and hypocritical of one another, and the moral of the story is used to teach the reader a life lesson about judging others. Both stories are dark and depressing.
Goodman Brown, the main character in "Young Goodman Brown," thinks he is a "good" Christian, and so are his family and neighbors. This story indicates how easily one can be manipulated and jaded through experience. He is also a

Both are dark and sad stories. The two main characters start out happy and joyful, and eventually become pessimistic and isolate themselves from society. In "A Rose for Emily" the townspeople where so busy judging and gossiping they did not realize how lonely she was. So lonely that she was crazy and had a dead corpse in her house for many years. She was so desperate for love that she became a necrophiliac. "Just as if a man- any man-could keep a kitchen properly the ladies said; so they were not surprised when the smell developed." "It was another link between the gross, teeming world and the high and mighty Griersons" (Page 324). "Young Goodman Brown" in contrast develops a story of manipulation and how easy is it when everyone is doing it. Basically showing how evil can overcome us if we let it. "Bring forth the converts! Cried a voice that echoed through the field and rolled into the forest." " At the word the Goodman Brown stepped forth from the shadow of the trees and approached the congregation, with whom he felt a loathful brotherhood by the sympathy of all that was wicked in his heart." " Evil must be your own happiness" (Page