Young Goodman Brown The Most Dangerous Game Analysis

Analysis of

Young Goodman Brown and

The Most Dangerous Game

Patrick V. Porterfield

Liberty University Online

Spring 2016 ENGL 102-D48 LUO

Richard Connell and Nathaniel Hawthorne portray both of their protagonists as intelligent and capable members of their societies of their times with the adept ability of discernment in the tactical sense. With high morals, they believe in fair play and honesty. The antagonist portrayals in both stories depict the silent and deep hidden evil that lurk in all societies. If one seeks the evils, they will find it. However, at times, some people those evils quite by accident and are often challenged by those revelations in the immediate and long term. The antagonists are the personification of evil, in

In Goodman, the antagonist is the Devil and he manipulates Goodman in his discussions about Goodman’s father, and Grandfather, Goody Cloyse, and Deacon Gookin. These people have already become manipulated by evil and are already in a secret society. Perhaps Goodman had already known this which provokes him to meet with the devil in the first place, but it appears that Goodman was prepared to become a member of this society. The symbolism presented in Goodman is ever-present in the Hawthorne’s descriptions of attire, props and even the names of the characters. But both stories seem to suggest seems to suggest that society is reflected in the members of that society, albeit in a town or in a small enclave. In Goodman, a large majority of the town was already members of this cult, and every member of the society is eligible to be a member of it as long as they accept the depravity of the rituals. In Game, the island was inhabited by only a few like-minded fellows who viewed anyone as potential kill, and was accepted in that small

Goodman was set in colonial America and representing the Puritan intolerance of the Quakers in Massachusetts. Hawthorne drew from his grandfather’s tribulations of the Salem Witch Trials which is further described in Goodman’s discussions with the devil regarding Goodman’s grandfather whipping a Quaker in the streets and handing Goodman’s father a flaming torch to burn an Indian village during King Philip’s War. These notes emphasize the historical fascination with the sin. In Game, General Zaroff was Cossack and is in reference to the people in the Ural Mountains region of Eastern Europe in present-day Ukraine. They were military specialists who fought as mercenaries for Czar Nicholas during the communist revolution of Russia and were known for their violent attacks and use of guerilla warfare. Connell used the Cossacks to steepen the plot and to color Zaroff as a cold and heartless person and provided rational for Zaroff’s appetite for