Instructor Teaching the Course, You

¶ … instructor teaching the course, you are revising syllabus for next semester. Which story WOULD you NOT use again and why?

If I were the instructor next semester, I would definitely eliminate "Young Goodman Brown" from the syllabus. Yes, it is important to read and appreciate different literature from different time periods, in this case a 19th century American author writing about colonial, Puritan New England. However, I think there are many other Nathaniel Hawthorne stories that contain similar themes without being so simplistic in their characters and use of symbolism. Hawthorne stories like "The Minister's Black Veil" or "Rappacini's Daughter" also contain the literary device of symbolism, but contain more humor or more drama, in terms of how the religious community is portrayed or what is at stake for the narrator.

Young Goodman Brown" seems to function more as a simplistic fable written for a magazine rather than a complex work of art that can provoke discussion on the level of the other stories on the syllabus. Also, it does not really fit very well with the rest of the syllabus. The other stories on the syllabus have three-dimensional characters that show a mix of good and bad characteristics, and face moral dilemmas. But the 'good man' of the title is suddenly confronted with a vision of hypocrisy, of the good people of the town showing their evil side. He does not come to this encounter with any soul-searching, or because he has done something particularly extraordinary, in terms of the story's plot. The story is heavy-handed and does not make much of a 'case' for the effective use of symbolism or the use of stories with clearly moral tales. Most people in the class have already encountered fables and morality tales in their other reading, even as children, and the more complex modernist works are a better spur towards better writing and critical thinking.