Symbolism Explored in the Story

¶ … Symbolism Explored in "The Story of an Hour" and "Young Goodman Brown"

We should be careful what we wish for because life does not always unfold the way we think it should. Two stories that demonstrate this point are "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin and "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. One theme each story shares is the fact that things never are what they appear to be. Both protagonists are enticed by a certain truth and they allow themselves to become enamored with it. The realize change is in the future and embrace that change never stopping to consider the law of unintended consequences. In Young Goodman Brown," Goodman is out to discover something that he thinks will enrich his life. He is looking for something that is mystical and magical. He never stops to think that what the forest holds is something that will wreck his life. Similarly, Louise sees a life outside the one she knows with her husband and is enchanted by the mystery of it. Goodman and Louise face strange and exciting truths but this truth does change their lives, it destroys them. Hawthorne and Chopin demonstrate the importance of the theme of how things are never what they appear to be with powerful symbolism.

In "The Story of an Hour," Louise is confronted with a painful fact that quickly becomes a wonderful opportunity. After the shock of her husband's death wears away, she begins to see her future and it is not empty and full of loneliness, it is presenting her with an opportunity to taste freedom. She begins to understand that she can have the kind of fulfilling life she has dreamed of and this excites her. She looks out the bedroom window and drinks in the "elixir of life through that open window" (635) and she feels the "delicious breath of rain" (635) that was in the air. She sees "spring days, and summer days" (635). These emotions prevent her from experiencing any real sorrow for her husband because she sees the hope in her future. The thought of her dead husband does not make her cry; instead, she opens her arms and welcomes what her future holds. We read that her "pulse beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body" (636). She is a woman transformed by what she has heard.

In "Young Goodman Brown," Goodman is confronted with a notion of what he will find in the forest. What he actually discovers there is something that he did not expect and cannot handle. What he discovers in the forest was worse than anything he might have imagined. Unlike Louise, his discovery is frightening for the people he had faith in are the ones spending time with the devil. The most important figure he believes to be in the forest is that of Faith, which shakes him to the core. This makes him question "heaven above him" (Hawthorne 594). While he does decide to take a stand against what he sees in the forest, it is too late because what he has seen has already changed him. Faith's pink ribbon flickering is important because it represents his wife and his faith, which he has seemingly lost in one night. We read that that are simply "gone" (595). Goodman is radically transformed by what he believes took place in the forest and while it was something he thought he could handle and something he thought he wanted to know, he was deadly wrong but there was not way for him to go back and reverse events. Like Louise, he is changed but not in a good way.

Symbolism is significant to each story as well. In "The Story of an Hour," the house and the window are important to Louise's development because they symbolize the prison and her freedom, respectively. The house is where she has been locked away for most of her life and the widow allows her to see what awaits her. In "Young Goodman Brown," Faith becomes a symbol of the goodness in man while Goodman's journey symbolizes the dark areas of the human soul. In addition, the devil is a symbol that also represents the dark side of humanity. These symbols destroy Goodman's faith. To think of his wife with the devil is too much for him to comprehend and while he never knows what actually goes on in the forest, his thoughts are corrupted beyond repair.