Young Goodman Brown and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow

This week I liked how you could really see the progression of the genre as it crosses “the pond”. In Young Goodman Brown Nathaniel Hawthorne uses his heritage and the setting of Puritan New England in most of his works of writing and this is no exception. Unlike some of the readings we’ve had this semester; Hawthorne drops you right in the middle of the action. The story is short, sweet, and to the point but he manages to pack a lot into the short story. The idea of the devil looking as if he could be related to Brown seems to suggest that he is Brown’s doppelganger; the evil opposite of Brown’s good side. Also the multiple meanings of his wife’s name Faith. The phrase “Faith kept me back” talks about his wife wanting him to stay with her and also speaks to his hesitation in betraying his faith in God for a pact with the devil. Since this is set in Puritan times religion is major so that fact that both religious faith and his actual wife Faith could have betrayed him speaks volumes against the religion and its “faithful” In the end it seems as if faith betrayed him but you never know as the story never really makes it clear; the story just as in real life leaves the belief in faith up to the reader.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is not what I pictured it would be. In my mind it would be similar to the movie with more action and suspense; not just a lot of descriptors of people and places with all the action taking place at the very end. I enjoyed the novella but wished that there would have been a bit more action in the beginning and middle of the book instead of all at the end. This novella can be tied to Young Goodman Brown because it also plays on the idea of faith or belief in something that may or may not exist. Ichabod is constantly looking over his shoulder for things that may or may not exist (witches, the horseman, etc.) This belief in the unknown starts to scare him as he makes his way home from Katrina’s and leads him to his run in with the horseman, or does it? Carver just like Hawthorne leaves it open for you to decide. Both make it seem as though you can’t take everything at face value.