An Analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” and Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game”, Essay Example

Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” while two very different stories, share some interesting parallels.  Both stories are set largely in the wilds; the first in a mysterious tropical jungle, the second in a dark New England forest. Both stories use the imagery of these dark, wooded vistas to generate fear and apprehension in the reader. Each story features a male protagonist who is confronted with a foreboding male antagonist. Finally, each story is centered round a confrontation with evil, and describes how each protagonist responds when faced with this evil. While sharing these traits, the stories arrive at starkly different conclusions as to how each protagonist responds when looking into the face of evil.

In “The Most Dangerous Game,” we met two men who are on a boat in the Caribbean, making way for Brazil in search of new and ever-more-challenging prey to hunt. The two men, Whitney and Rainsford, are above deck, and Whitney is recounting to Rainsford that there is an island nearby –referred to as “Ship-trap Island” by sailors- with a sinister reputation. Whitney describes the fearful reaction of the crew, and even the ship’s captain, at the very mention of the island. He acknowledges that the sailors are being “superstitious,” but admits to his own palpable sense of foreboding about the place. Rainsford brushes aside such concerns, and Whitney departs for his bunk.

As he sits in the darkness, smoking his pipe, Rainsford hears a gunshot from off in the distance, then two more. He jumps up and tries to peer into the dark night, which is “like looking through a blanket;” as he does so, he knocks his pipe against a rope and it falls from his mouth. Instinctively he reaches for his pipe, and in so doing, he loses his balance and falls into the sea.

The sea is “blood-warm;” this rich and vivid imagery thrusts the character headlong towards his appointment with evil. The author leaves no doubt that Rainsford is headed towards a troubling adventure. Rainsford swims to shore –a difficult and dangerous task- and falls asleep by the water’s edge. When he awakes, it is afternoon, and he gathers his wits as he surveys his surroundings. Where there are guns, there are people, he reasons, and he quickly confirms his deduction when he spots a set of bootprints in the earth. He follows these prints along the shore and into the jungle, eventually emerging at a clearing where he spots a large, imposing house perched atop a cliff.

Ranisford finally reaches the house, and is confronted first by an armed, uniformed soldier, and then by a man who introduces himself as “General Zaroff.” We learn that Zaroff is a deposed soldier from the Russian army, displaced by the revolution. He recognizes Rainsford as a renowned hunter; at this point we learn that Rainsford has authored, among others, a book on hunting “snow leopards in Tibet.” He welcomes Rainsford into his home, and offers him clothes and a warm meal.

It is at diner that we learn the true nature of Zaroff’s evil: he is a hunter of human beings. It is revealed that the gunshots Rainsford heard on the previous evening were fired by Zaroff as he hunted down captive men he had captured through traps set in the refs around the island. He asserts that Rainsford will be joining him on a hunt the following day; horrified by the prospect, Rainsford declines. It is then that Zaroff makes clear his true intent: Rainsford will not be a hunter, he will be the prey.

In “Young Goodman Brown,” Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the story of a young man who sets off into the forest late at night. As in “The Most Dangerous Game,” his intentions are not immediately made clear to the reader. What is clear, almost immediately, is the sense of foreboding the author creates through the use of imagery. As Young Goodman Brown leaves his wife Faith behind, we understand that her name I symbolic of his faith in God, and that his journey is as much spiritual as it is literal.

As Goodman Brown enters the forest, he is greeted by a mysterious figure carrying a walking stick. The walking stick looks to Goodman Brown like a snake; this imagery is reminiscent of the Biblical story of Eve and the serpent, and conveys the idea that the man is evil. Goodman Brown exclaims his desire to abandon his journey and turn back, saying that his father and his grandfather had never made such a journey. The older man corrects him, saying that he knew both men. He says that he once assisted Goodman’s father in “lashing a Quaker woman through the streets of Salem.” This is, perhaps, an allusion to the fact that Hawthorne’s forbearer had presided over the trials of several accused “witches” in the Salem Witch Trials, a fact that Hawthorne apparently found quite shameful (Harding, 1998), and one that colored many of his written works (Wohlpart, 1998).

The two venture further into the forest, and soon come upon Goody Cloyse, a woman known to Goodman Brown as his religious instructor. Brown hides from her, concerned about being seen in the company of the evil man, but to his surprise, she seems well-acquainted with him. Goodman Brown is further surprised when she makes reference to having participated in activities that would be suited for a witch. As they speak, the man suddenly casts his staff to the ground, and both woman and staff seemingly disappear.

Goodman Brown rejoins the man on the path, and watches as he plucks a small sapling to craft a new walking stick. As he touches it, the smaller branches seem to wither at his touch, as if dried by the sun. At the sight of this, Goodman Brown stops walking, and asserts that he will proceed no further. Brown is no quite certain that he is consorting with the Devil, and he refuses to keep him company any longer. The man replies that Goodman will most certainly change his mind, throws his new walking stick at Goodman Brown’s feet, and disappears down the path into the forest.

At this point in the story, Goodman Brown has become fully immersed in the events laid out before him; he is caught up in an inexorable appointment with his fate, just as Rainsford finds himself caught up in the same pull of destiny. Both men are now intertwined in the machinations set forth by the men they have met, men who each, in their way, are the very embodiment of evil. In “Young Goodman Brown,” the main character finds himself drawn, almost unwillingly, further into the forest. In what appears to be a nearly dream-like or trance-like state, Goodman Brown comes upon a gathering in the woods, a gathering of several local townspeople. Some are common folk, while others are figures of great prominence in the town. All are engaged in some sort of ritual, a ritual that appears to be almost a celebration of evil, a grotesque satire of a solemn Christian mass.

Rainsford meets his fate alone; hunted by the evil Zaroff, he manages to elude capture –a first in Zaroff’s experience as a hunter of men- and, after killing Zaroff’s henchman, makes his way back into Zaroff’s home, where he lays in wait for the hunter. Zaroff returns home, disappointed that Rainsford has managed to avoid his date with death, and saddened by the loss of his guard. To his surprise, Rainsford is hiding in his bedroom, waiting for him. Zaroff is startled for a moment, but quickly regains his composure, and the two men prepare to duel to the death.

It is here where the fates of the two men diverge, as their futures are shaped in very different ways by their encounters with evil. Young Goodman Brown seems scarred by his experience; it is as if he spends the rest of his life as a waking ghost, a living man who is, in a way, already dead. As Adam and Eve were forever changed by the commission of original sin, Goodman Brown has seen the true nature of people, the evil hidden within the hearts of all men. Though he lives a long life, and has children with Faith, he is forever stricken by the realization of this evil, and goes to his grave a saddened and defeated man.

Rainsford, by contrast, has a very different reaction to his confrontation with evil. The challenge set forth by Zaroff was that whoever defeated the other should sleep in Zaroff’s bed that night. While the author omits the details of their battle, we are assured of the outcome by the final lines of the story, when Rainsford, drifting off to sleep, thinks to himself that he has never slept in so comfortable a bed. It is as if, by defeating Zaroff, he has captured his soul; in his victory over Zaroff, he is not repelled by evil, but instead he becomes that evil, supplanting Zaroff in his own bed, his own home.

In both stories, the authors use strong, vivid imagery to invoke a sense of fear and foreboding. The main characters are each given a look into the evil that hides in the souls of all men. While Rainsford is being pursued by evil, fate has still drawn him towards it. While Goodman Brown is not being pursued, he too seems drawn by grater forces towards his destiny. One man is repelled by evil; the other embraces it. In each case, though, the force of evil has shown itself to the men, changing them forever.

References

Connell, Richard. (1994). The most Dangerous game. Retrieved from http://fiction.eserver.org/short/the_most_dangerous_game.html

Harding, Bryan, editor & foreword (1998). Young Goodman Brown and Other tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. (2000). Young Goodman Brown. Retrieved from http://www.online-literature.com/poe/158/

Wohlpart, Jim, editor. (1998). Nathaniel Hawthorne “Young Goodman Brown”. Florida Gulf Coast University , Retrieved from http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/wohlpart/alra/Hawthorne.htm