Young Goodman Brown
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Allegory
1) An allegory is a story with a second distinct
meaning partially hidden behind its literal or
visible meaning, in which characters and
events are intended as parallels to
characters/ideas and events on another level.
2) Allegories rely on symbols (concrete objects
that represent abstract ideas) and
personification (giving abstract ideas human
characteristics), as well as archetypes
(recognizable character types, settings, plot
situations, etc that appear in other examples of
literature)
For each question, take notes and find
at least one example from the text.
1. What characters seem to be personification of
larger ideas? How does this help us understand
the story?
2. What objects do you think are symbolic? How?
3. What aspects of the settings might be archetypal?
How?
4. Re-read the last two paragraphs of the story.
What does your group understand as the
allegorical (parallel/partially hidden) meaning of
the story? What are we to learn from “Young
Goodman Brown”?