Hey, it's AMy.
Just going back somewhat to Young Goodman Brown, in the pre-information we were told that Hawthorne is similar to Poe in that he took a dark view of human nature and there are definitely similarities in the atmosphere and style of writing between both authors. However, I feel that they are distinct from one another in that Poe focusses more on the internal conflicts of his characters, such as the narrator of the Raven or in the House of Usher with the collapse of both the house and the family line. Hawthorne, on the other hand, uses experiences, from what I can tell, that involve the environment and outside influence more than Poe. He focusses on sin and human flaws rather than the spectrum of human emotion described by Poe. For example, in Young Goodman Brown, the main character experiences the change in attitude from seeing the good in everyone to seeing the worst in people due to an internal change resulting from what he perceives in the environment, that everyone around him is guilty of being tempted and therefore no one is truly who he thinks they've been. In the Birthmark, Aylmer's obsession with removing the imperfection from his wife's face is an issue of his environment. And according to the pre-info, The Blithedale Romance examines the flaws of a utopian New England Community, much less the innerworkings of the individual's self, rather the influences that the environment has upon an individual's attitude or perception.
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2 comments:
Hey, it's Erin.
I sort of disagree with Amy that Hawthorne does not focus on the internal, pyschological part. You can look at "Young Goodman Brown" as an internal conflict because the story is can be seen as a journey within Brown, away from faith and into isolation. His journey is portrayed as a physical one, but is symbolic of a journey through temptation, which is an internal one as much as an external one. Furthermore, we never know if the physical journey ever happens. It could all be a dream, which is definitely an internal one.
I do think that Hawthorne focusses on internal conflict, but more the internal thought influenced by the environment where as Poe's characters seemed to torture themselves, such as with the Tell Tale Heart and The Raven. Rather than having this external connection and us seeing the world through Hawthorne's characters' perspectives, with Poe's characters we don't see that external connection as much, we just focus on a single character whereas in the Hawthorne stories we read we focus on other characters as well, just through the view of the narrator or certain character.
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