Hawthorne 7/8/09

All three of Hawthorne's stories that we read involve the saying "everything isn't as it seems" about the subconcious natures of human beings. In "Young Goodman Brown," Goodman strays from his village and family to follow a mysterious figure who you find out is the devil. He meets with him and follows him. While following him, he finds more and more people joining the ceremony that they were heading to, many of these people being from Brown's village, and one of the last to show up is his wife, Faith. He sees all these people, people he thought were decent and good, following the path of the devil and about to join the higher powers of wickedness. He realizes how those he previously thought of as devout Puritans expressing their will for the devil. His emotions boil over when it's he and his wife's turn to join wickedness, yet right before they do he asks his wife to resist and stay with the church. She doesn't, and suddenly everyone disappears, leaving Goodman by himself. In "The Minister's Black Veil," a minister in starts wearing a black veil one day, and doesn't take it off until he dies, while never telling anyone why he's wearing it. What he does portray to the people of the village is that they are all wearing black veils, they all have sinned and are trying to hide it, but the black veil brings it out. In "The Birth Mark," a husband, Aylmer seeks perfection by persuading his already beautiful wife, Georgiana, to get the birthmark on her face removed. He doesn't notice it until they are married, but every day he sees it it makes him love her less. This affects Georgiana because she realizes how her husband doesn't love her as much, causing her to want it to get removed. Once it's removed, Aylmer is allowed a moment of perfection until his wife dies. I believe this is a story exemplifying the saying of how you only achieve perfection a moment before death. All three of these stories concentrate on the subconscious levels of human beings, but are dealt with in different ways. Goodman Brown refuses to forgive his friends and family for being sinners and following the devil, ending up with him being left alone and somber. Reverand Hooper wears a black veil to symbolize that he's a sinner, even if people don't know how he sinned. This shows his followers that a lot of other people are sinners, they just try to hide it, but with a black veil, no matter if people know what you did or not, they know you are a sinner, and essentially you are hiding nothing. In "The Birth Mark", Aylmer doesn't realize how much his wife's birthmark bothers him and almost makes him hate her, until they become married, then after his loathing builds up every time he sees her. His strive for perfection is subconscious, and ends up ruining both his and his wife's life while searching for it. All three stories dive into the subconscious aspect of human beings and how it can destroy many lives, unless it is realized and dealt with.