In short stories, I have learned that there is much more than what at first meets the eye. Almost everything in the story has meaning. All I have to do is try to find the hints and clues the writer drops and manage to put them all together. I have to concentrate more than I ever have so that I can interpret the authors meaning and what he or she might really be trying to convey in the writing. In "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, I determined that through diverse symbolism, Hawthorne writes of a man who in his coming of age learns that there is a darkness in everyone and upon this coming of knowledge,
he is forever changed.
From the start, Hawthorne describes Goodman Brown as a good Puritan who is devoted to his wife ^ÑFaith,' whose name he uses like a shield for his soul.
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