An Analysis of the Protagonist in Young Goodman Brown: The Disintegration of the "Old Self"

Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the great American romantic novelists of the 19th century,and his Young Goodman Brown is a classic short story about human nature. With the theme of “human nature is evil”, it presents the main character’s psychological contradiction and struggle when facing the “dark” truth. The purpose of this paper is to do a close reading, to interpret the dilemma of human nature and the protagonist’s disintegration of the “old self”, so as to bring out philosophical reflections on human nature and human predicament.

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