As Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, Young Goodman Brown story progressed it remained a mystery as to the exact reason for the journey of Goodman Brown. There are hints that this journey was evil and was against his Christian principles. While journeying through the woods with his companion Goodman Brown expressed doubt about continuing and expressed guilt and shame. He especially wondered how his moral and spiritual advisors, Goody Cloyse , Deacon Gookin and the pastor of Salem Church would feel about him making this journey. The thought of them reproaching him was strong enough for him to hesitate.
A defining moment in the story occurred on page 6, second paragraph when Deacon Gookin said, ” I had rather miss an ordination-dinner than tonight’s meeting.” “……besides several of the Indian powwows, who after their fashion, know almost as much deviltry as the best of us.” I felt this was a defining moment because this is the point where Goodman Brown realized these people that he held in such high regard and who professed themselves to be good Christians were actually evil hypocrites.
It is almost possible to visualize Goodman Brown in his hiding place in shock and disbelief about what he overheard. The evil journey he was reluctant to continue on was being spoken about with great anticipation by the people he looked up to for spiritual guidance.
The devil meeting Goodman Brown participated in along with his Pastor and Deacon appears to be a dream and better yet a nightmare. If this incident really occurred as Goodman Brown slept it is unfortunate that he was unable to decipher real from unreal and allowed himself to live a life of sadness and mistrust with loss of his Christian beliefs.
In Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis,” this story too has a nightmarish quality. The transformation of Gregor Samsa into a vermin is unrealistic and impossible. The term kafkaesque describes the particular writing style of Kafka. His stories tend to have a nightmarish quality that tend to be surreal and appears to be from a subconscious origin. In the case of Samsa he was probably thinking subconsciously about his life and the overwhelming responsibilities he had. As a young man he must have wondered what it would be like to be free of all his obligations. He was trapped in a job he hated but could not leave because of debts owed to his boss by his father. I thought this was a nightmare he was having because of anxiety about wanting to free himself from his responsibilities. He was worried about how helpless he would be to his family if he quit his job. The nightmarish vermin state showed how quickly his family would turn against him if he was no longer able to take care of them.
