Comparison Of Young Goodman Brown And Bartleby The Scrivener

When reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” or Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener,” the audience might notice how they are stories of men who become detached from the society after a notable change in how they act towards the world. However, while Bartleby’s disconnection stems from work-related changes, Young Goodman Brown’s disconnection is caused by a “spiritual” experience. I want to focus on how many things these characters have in common, to show what may have caused their change of view in the societies around them.
To begin, the focus will be set on the issues posed by the story of Bartleby. The audience may wonder why Bartleby goes from the employee who does his work without being problematic, to one who repetitively

says “I would prefer not to” to all tasks (Page 107). This comes from Bartleby feeling a lack of sense in his world, and in all, just giving up.

He starts to disconnect himself by refusing to do work given to him by his boss, this comes from his desire to be complacent, which we find out when he says “I like to be stationary,” when talking to the lawyer (127). Bartleby continues to change throughout the story, as he goes from being an employee who won’t do his work, to never leaving the office and essentially making it his home. According to Todd Giles, “Bartleby's silence establishes distance,” meaning that he becomes so out of place that people stop expecting of him (Giles, 2007). What this causes is the need for Bartleby to be removed from the Wall Street Office. The lawyer tries in many different ways to do so, and even offers him more money than he is owed if he will quit. Bartleby refuses and continues to stay in the building, doing nothing, detached from the world around him. Eventually the lawyer changes offices due to Bartleby and leaves him there for the next buyer. Bartleby is forced out by the new owner, and in time it is told the police he is a vagrant and he is thrown into jail. Bartleby’s story ends

here, due to his disagreement to any change or task when once he is thrown in jail he no longer eats. The lawyer finds out Bartleby has deceased while in jail, while shocked he comes to find out Bartleby came from the Dead Letters office. This part of the story reveals a part of the scrivener that we didn’t know, and possibly why Bartleby was so complacent and unwilling to work. Bartleby spent his time opening letters meant for people who were no longer in existence, and it fed into him feeling as if nothing mattered once we were gone anyways.
Next, we are going to discuss the problems experienced by Goodman Brown on his journey into the woods. This story takes on a spiritual and out-of-this-world setting as it progresses. The story is set during the Salem Witch Trials, which we can assume from the stories many references to the town of Salem and its talk of witches and demons. As Young Goodman Brown ventures into the woods he meets a few people along the way, including a man who claimed “[he] helped [his] grandfather, the constable” and that “it was [he who] brought [his] father a pitch-pine knot” (Line 18). However, Goodman Brown seems baffled by this, as he thought his family had never ventured into the woods before him. The story continues to the point of an almost dream like state, where all the people around him seemed to be devils and demons, all of them against Goodman Brown. In the middle of this fight with all of the people from his village and the dark figure, he finds the pink ribbons of his lover, Faith. This leads him to believe that Faith had been lost, gone from existence, and he becomes so tired from the confrontation that he passes out. From here, he wakes up, the next day, and walks back to town. Everyone that was in his adventure is there, normal, the people who were seemingly demons and witches were now doing things they would naturally do. Faith was waiting for him when he returned, and he did not believe that she was alive. He questioned if his adventure was just a dream, that he had passed out after entering the woods and imagined in all. Unfortunately, it did not matter, as from this point on he became “a stern, sad, darkly meditative, distrustful, if not desperate man,” and he no longer believed what around him was real (72). As Benjamin Lawson says “Initially, Brown seems aware that his mission is sinful, but eventually he perceives sin only in others” meaning that after his adventure was over he changed (Lawson, 2010). Due to this change, he no longer believed any of the things that the people did around him were in good will, and that they were all there to deceive him. From this came his unwillingness to accept society anymore, and he lived the rest of his life believing that there was no good left in his community and became distant from everyone. He died lonely, with only Faith and family at his funeral, and “they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone; for his dying hour was gloom” (72). Goodman Browns change removed him from his society, and left him lonely and only to die when his time came.
Bartleby and Goodman share many different traits here, as once their change occurs, it never returns to the way it was before.

While the changes may have been caused by different factors, we can see that both of these men never wishes to return into their communities once their view changing experience occurred. Bartleby removed himself from his work, and from life, by not doing anything which required effort, and Goodman Brown removed himself from his community and his own wife, by no longer interacting with any of them. The problem with the stories of Bartleby and Goodman Brown is they both end with one very dark ending, the death of the main character. Light needs to be shined on why, as this is a writer’s way of saying to the readers that we should not allow ourselves to become distant from our society, otherwise, expect your death to not affect the world. Both of the men in these stories affect those around them, while remaining unaffected by others once their minds had been made. Hawthorne and Melville share a similar view in this case, as they both have the idea that our sense of purpose is to give purpose to the world we live in, and if we do not do so that we will end up like the men in the stories, alone at death. Bartleby and Goodman Brown set themselves at an impasse, never willing to change again, once their situation changes. They both become so mysterious to the outside world that it eventually it gives up on them, just as they did

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In conclusion, Bartleby and Goodman Brown made the worst of their situations. Neither of them progressed their lives once they had made their decisions. The authors of these stories give us a peek into the world of being an outcast from society, whether it be because of a certain view of life, or because of spiritual views. The audience can gather from both of these stories that people should never give up on the world, no matter the problem, as it will never have a positive effect on the lives involved. Goodman Brown and Bartleby represent humankind and its faults, its disbeliefs, its unwillingness to try and its occasional inability to progress past an issue.