Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne was an excellent and creative user of allegory and symbolism in his writings. Examples of allegory and symbolism can be drawn from many of his stories such as “Young Goodman Brown”, and “The Minister’s Black Veil”. The story I will touch on will be “Young Goodman Brown”. In this story Hawthorne uses allegory, or religious symbolism to make certain connections with the characters, places, items, and situations. “Hawthorne, in his …showed first 75 words of 993 total…

…showed last 75 words of 993 total…of it in “Young Goodman Brown” seemed to get under your skin and make you feel uneasy, and lead you to re-think the things you learned as you were growing up. “The subject of course wants many imposing elements – for it is merely an Allegory of simple New England Village Life – but as a Tale of the Supernatural it certainly is more exquisitely managed than anything we have seen in American Literature, at least!” (Harris 1982, 293).