Comparing the Main Characters and Dark Themes of Hawthorne's The Minister's Black Veil and Young Goodman Brown.

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Written between the period of 1836 to 1846, the stories of Young Goodman Brown and The Minister's Black Veil have similar characters. Characters such as Reverend Hooper cannot focus on their own sins; they only focus on the sins of those surrounding them. Moral distrust, conflict, gloom, and long periods of isolation are the result. The tales use elements of darkness (i.e. a black veil) to make statements. It has been suggested that Hawthorne's own inner conflicts and self-isolation remained and were also reflected in his own wearing of dark attire similar to those of the Puritans and the dark characters found in his writing. This paper has four pages and nine sources in the bibliography.