Young Goodman Brown and Sweat are two wonderful short stories authored by two famous American authors, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Zora Neale Hurston respectively. The short story by Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown, narrates the journey of Young Goodman Brown into self-scrutiny by which he loses his integrity and belief. Sweat by Hurston describes the story of a washer woman and her jobless and insecure husband. Faith provides intense alterations in the life of people. The trial times expose the intensity and genuineness of their faith. The two characters of the two stories display many similarities with respect to their religious backgrounds and principles. But at the same time, the theme of religion and faith is presented in diverse ways in these works. The present paper attempts to analyze the two protagonists of the short stories who display the similarities and variances even though they belong to two periods of time and are from different walks of life.
Goodman Brown and Delia are from pious backgrounds with powerfully embedded ideologies. While Brown leads a peaceful life, Delia, the washer woman lives a life of distress and despair. Goodman Brown can be equated to a puritan in spirit. His family held a significant position in the society which is clear from his own words: “We have been a race of honest men and good Christians since the days of the martyrs; and shall I be the first of the name of Brown that ever took this path and kept” (Hawthorne 92). On the contrary, Delia is an ordinary woman who encounters many difficult situations in life to make both ends meet. She does all the household chores and leads a tough life with her abusive husband. Her troubles are clearly visible from these lines: “She saw that Sykes had kicked all of the clothes together again, and now stood in her way truculently, his whole manner hoping, praying, for an argument. But she walked calmly around him” (Hurston 112). Both the characters have distinct views on faith as they belong to two different classes.
Even when both Goodman Brown and Delia are religious and pious, their diverse temperaments bring them entirely different climaxes to their life. Brown’s idealism and pride eventually shatters his faith that ultimately takes him to a tragic end. Whereas Delia’s humility and her modesty enhances the quality of her life and she proceeds to escape from the clutches of her evil husband, Skyes. Thus both authors attempt to display how faith plays a definite role in the lives of two different protagonists.
Works Cited
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Young Goodman Brown. Mankato, MN: Creative Education, 1993. Print.
Hurston, Zora Neale., and Cheryl A. Wall. Sweat. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers U Press, 1997. Print.
