Many authors regard their work as being a single standalone piece of art. By this logic, it can be safe to assume that the authors work their literary pieces to stand out against similar genres of works. However, in some cases many different stories end up sharing the same motif and theme. In many cases like this, it is not because of two authors collaborating to come up with a theme, or lesson, to teach society but a stroke of luck. When forming their stories, authors use society around them to develop their characters, settings, and such so in a case where money was an issue with society, authors during that time period will have their work reflect around that issue. Five stories from the 20th century share a common theme among them as well as a story from the 19th century. Although these stories were written at different times and by authors, the message within the stories are the same, which is how lies, deceit, guilt and blame can destroy a person’s outlook on life. This essay will examine how these themes work in the stories by the authors Nathanial Hawthorne, Willa Cather, Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, and Tim O’Brien.
In Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown, a 19th century short story, the protagonist is tempted into joining a witch’s coven out in the woods one night. Many of the names have symbolic meaning such as his wife being named Faith. At the very beginning of the story, the audience learns that one of the themes will be based on lies and deceit. Goodman Brown has lied to Faith about the business he had to take care of in the woods due to him wanting to protect himself and possibly her. If the townspeople knew that Brown was going into the woods to meet and join with a satanic coven, they would have executed him as a witch and his wife as well. Once Brown makes it into the woods, he meets the man with the serpent’s cane and his apprehension of what he was getting himself into sets in. As Brown travels with the man, he learns some unsavory details about his grandfather and father from the old man. At the scene, Hawthorne gives another glimpse of deceit happening within the story. Before learning of that knowledge, Brown tells the man that he comes from a family of devout Christian men who would never been participating in joining a satanic coven. However, the man lets Brown in on what his relatives were really like when they were not pretending to be good upstanding Christians. The man helped Brown’s grandfather, whom was a constable, lash a Quaker woman through the streets and gave Brown’s father a torch to burn down an Indian village during King Philip’s war. As the story progresses, Brown learns more about the true nature of the townspeople. The first person he sees is Goody Cloyse and learns of her connection with witchcraft. The man asks her about a witchcraft recipe and she recites it to him. Brown is in such shock to learn that the woman who taught him catechism as well as being his religious advisor would belong to a coven that he can only say, “That old woman taught me my catechism” (Hawthorne). There was even a hint that another woman in the town, Goody Cory, as the man describes her as stealing his broom and being an “unhanged witch”. Throughout the story, Brown constantly learns that the people he has lived in town with are not who they say they are. He has been constantly lied to and led to believe that the townsfolk were God-fearing and worshipping people. Despite the fact that Brown didn’t know if the events of that night were real or a dream, it changed him for the worse. After that night, Brown continued to live in town with the people but was no longer able to trust him as he once did. A similar theme of lies and deceit can be found more in the 20th century short stories.
Another example of lies and deceit being the theme of the story is in Willa Cather’s Paul’s Case. The story revolves around a young high school student by the name of Paul. In the opening he is being yelled at by a panel of teachers for his unacceptable behavior throughout the school year. He wants to be let back into school, but Cather quickly lets the audience know that it is a lie and Paul was very accustomed to producing lies. By this admission, the audience are already aware of the type of person Paul is. It is never mentioned why Paul lied to stay in school, but the audience can infer that it had to do with his home life and his father. After he leaves the meeting, Paul goes to his job as an usher which is the only thing he seems to honestly enjoy. After it is over, he doesn’t want to go home to his father and thinks up a lie to tell him. “He would not go in. He would tell his father that he had no car fare, and it was raining so hard he had gone home with one of the boys and stayed all night” (Cather). Paul chooses to forgo sleeping in his own bed to sleep in a rat-infested basement to make the lie seem true. The second lie Paul told was once again to his father and was under the guise of doing schoolwork. Paul asked his father for permission, and money, to go over to his friend’s house to complete geometry homework. However, Paul’s real intentions were to hang out with the actors at Carnegie Hall. Throughout the story, Paul’s lies become more extravagant with one of them being particularly when he stole the three-thousand dollars from his job and fled to New York. When Paul found out his father was coming to get him along with the authorities, he felt immense fear at his lavish lifestyle being taken away from him. Not only that, but the lies and guilt overwhelmed him to the point of him taking his own life. Cather’s theme of lies and deceit shows how the truth would come out eventually and ruin, in this case end, a person’s life. It can be connected to how Goodman Brown was no longer able to enjoy a carefree life after learning about the dark secrets of the people in his town.
In the same vein, but a different format, Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery deals with deceit when it comes from people and family members whom are trusted. The premise of the story is that a town has to do a “lottery” every year. The “lottery” consists of each family participating to found out who has won that year. The winning prize is being stoned to death by the townspeople as well as their family members. This practice shows to the audience that the friendships formed in this town are very superficial and example is when Mrs. Hutchinson, the family who won the lottery drawing, laughs and talks with Mrs. Delacroix before the ceremony starts. Mrs. Hutchinson is even eager for the ceremony to start as she hurries her husband along despite protesting that he was too late to make his own paper. The person who was chosen to be stoned to death, Tessie Hutchinson, showed her apprehension of participating and that she would even turn on her family: “Daughters draw with their husbands' families, Tessie," Mr. Summers said gently. "You know that as well as anyone else” (Jackson). Until then, everyone was getting along but turned on Tessie the minuet she picked the paper. Even her mother, who was enthusiastic, started to protest that it wasn’t fair. This shows her hypocrisy that she wanted to participate until someone from her family was chosen. The deceit and hypocrisy in the story can also be connected back to Young Goodman Brown. Brown was all for joining the coven until he learned that many townspeople were already a part of it. It also showed that the friendships and his spiritual advisor were superficial connections since they did not truly believe what they were telling Brown. The character Tessie can be connected to Paul since she also did not want to be with her family when it came to that day.
In Ray Bradbury’s The Veldt, the children are the ones who are committing the lies and deceit. However, it can be argued that the house was deceitful as well since the holographic lions were not designed to actually kill people. The children, Peter and Wendy, have begun spending their entire free time in the nursery room. The nursery room is a virtual reality that is constantly set to an African veldt with man-eating lions thanks to the children. The parents, George and Lydia, began to worry because they hear screams coming from the room all the time, especially Lydia who believes that the lions are capable of actual killing them. When confronted about the location of the nursery, the children lie and say that it is not set to Africa. Before the parents could check again, Lydia runs to the room and presumable changes it to a forest scene. Despite the room being able to change at anyone’s will, it only changes for the children. The parents asked a psychologist, Dr. McClean, come check the room. The doctor feels that the room is bad and blames the parents for letting the children become addicted to it, thus leading to the parents blaming the house. When the parents turn off the house at the request of Dr. McClean, the children went into a hysterical fit because of it. The parents feel bad an aloe for the children to play it in one last time. This is where the final show of deceit comes into the story. The children shout from the nursery for their parents as if something is wrong. When the parents get there, the children lock them in the African veldt with the lions with Peter stating to the house, “Don't let them switch off the nursery and the house” (Bradbury). In order to keep their playroom, the children let their parents be killed by the supposed holographic lions. The house was deceitful by going against its instructions that the room was only harmless holograms, but could actually kill people. The room was deadlier than it looked, much like the town in The Lottery and the people in Young Goodman Brown. The children are similar to Tessie and Paul since they lied to their parents (Tessie tried to in order to not pick for her family) in order to get what they wanted.
Tim O’Brien’s The Thing They Carried, the format is different since multiple soldiers are telling stories and each one has a different theme. However, the one that stands out is the story Good Form. Up until that point, the audience is supposed to be engrossed in the details that the soldiers have gone through in the Vietnam War. There have been admissions of why soldiers killed someone, how it affected them, and even a story of how a woman was so enamored with the war that she became a killer in the jungle. Good Form completely dispels that by saying that everything that has happened to be a lie. Unlike in the previous stories, the deceit happens to the audience instead of a character. “I watched a man die on a trail near the village of My Khe. I did not kill him. But I was present, you see, and my presence was guilt enough. []But listen. Even that story is made up” (O’Brien). The reason he admits to making up certain stories is so the audience can sympathize with him on how he felt during his tour. Conversely, this admission makes the readers question whether the other stories from the “soldiers” are real or made up. Although this is a form of deceit, lying to the audience, it is different from the other stories. In the other four stories, the characts are lying and blaming each other but in this one the author is lying to the audience. This tactic makes the readers begin to question whether the other stories are real or whether he is using them to allow the audience to sympathize with him.
These stories show how deceitful behavior can lead to one’s downfall. Although in Young Goodman Brown, he was able to live through his deceit but was never able to trust people again coming face-to-face with the possible reality that the townspeople were in a witch’s coven. Paul’s Case showed the audience that continuous lies and deceitful behavior was bound to catch up to him one day. When it did, Paul could not bear to face the consequences and killed himself. The Lottery was a story under the guise that there would be a prize for a family, but the prize was actually a chosen family member being stoned to death. The friendship and familial love in the story was superficial as everyone quickly turned on Tessie, her friends and family, when she was picked to be stoned to death. Just like The Lottery, the nursery in The Veldt was under the guise of being innocent since everything was holographic. However, the children were able to change it to the point where they tricked and locked their parents in the room to be eaten by lions. As for The Things They Carried, many of the characters feel guilty for what happened during the war and blame it on each other. Some blame the American government and the Viet Cong, while others blame the medic for not being good in his job or other soldiers. Either way, all the characters felt betrayed by people who they thought were there to help them. All these authors have a common theme that transcends genre and time. It can be argued that these stories are cautionary tales of what could happen if a person lets deceitful behavior, placing blame on each other, and constantly lying led their life which many of these characters did not have a happy life in the end.
Works Cited:
Bradbury, Ray. The Veldt. Mankato, MN: Creative Education, 1987. Web. 29 Apr. 2016.
Cather, Willa. Paul's Case. Logan, IA: Perfection Form, 1980. Web. 29 Apr. 2016.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Young Goodman Brown. Mankato, MN: Creative Education, 1993. Web. 29 Apr. 2016.
Jackson, Shirley. The Lottery. Boston: Twayne, 1975. Web. 29 Apr. 2016.
O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2005. Web. 29 Apr. 2016.
