A comparison of the characters in two short stories, James Joyce’s Araby and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” .
The author of this paper compares the characters of the young boy in James Joyce’s Araby and the young man in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”. By making these comparisons, the author shows how innocence can be lost only by experiences and realization of the way things really are.
“In some ways the boy and Brown’s falls from innocence differ greatly. Brown’s fall from innocence is quite unique. His naivete had built up over his entire life and is about to crash down on him and change his life forever. Even though his new experience might have been only a dream, it is so significant and gives Brown a clue about people in his town and people in general. Since he had not found out early in his life that people are naturally prone to evil this radical change makes him a whole new person. The boy finds out early about the importance of responsibility and priorities in life and how one can be easily distracted by something that seems much more important.”