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Similes
Situational Irony
Explanation and Analysis—Hiding Sin from Sinners:
A major irony of "Young Goodman Brown" is that while Goodman Brown tries so hard to hide his sins from the members of his community in Salem, all those people actually turn out to be sinners themselves.
In Puritan culture, appearing virtuous to others was crucial: any whiff of sin, no matter how flimsy the evidence, could get someone ostracized or worse. (Nineteen innocent people were executed during the Salem Witch Trials, around the time when this story is set.) For this reason, Goodman Brown is terrified throughout the story at the possibility that someone in his community might see him in the woods and (correctly) assume that he's there to do something sinful. The possibility of being perceived as sinful seems to trouble him much more than the actual fact that he's sinning.
Related Themes:
