Real-Like Dream

       Studies show that the majority of people that dream have negative thoughts and emotions. In Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the main character is struggles to process the good and the bad as they both intertwine together. As his wife, Faith gets somehow stuck into the situation in evil. Brown goes in to the dark woods to find a journey just to find a surprise. Brown doesn’t know what’s real and what’s not. In the poem, A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe, the main character is unconscious about life. As the narrator doesn’t know whether it’s a dream, the narrator can feel as if in real life. Both of the literature pieces have similarities and differences, writing techniques, and the way the authors uses the idea of dreaming.
      Within both literature pieces, Poe and Hawthorne both have similar parts to their writing piece. Both authors have written these two different yet similar pieces at the time. For both pieces, the person in each are both unconcisous about reality. As well as they both have symbols throughout the pieces. Although they do have same awareness, they don’t have the same purpose. Poe makes one of the stanzas take place at the ocean which makes you think of pure ness. As the author describes the ocean with madly behaviors you don’t think that way anymore. Hawthorne makes the setting be in the darkness of the woods where there was a ritual for the worship of the evil itself. 

     As of the story and the poem have differences in writing techniques, they have similarities that connect each other. For example, Hawthorne describes the forest as Young Goodman Brown is making his way to the journey ahead of himself. "He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind." As Brown was heading into the forest, you could feel how he felt, it’s like getting goosebumps after being alone in the darkness. In the poem, Poe describes this person along the ocean holding grains of sand. "Of the surf-tormented shore/ And I hold within my hand/ Grains of the golden sand/. Poe illustrates the picture in the head to get a better understanding to the stanza. Another example of a technique would be diction. Hawthorne uses the word faith in two ways: Brown's wife and his belief in God. "... he looked back and saw the head of faith still peeping after him." This meaning is when he's talking about his belief. "And Faith, his wife was aptly named , thrust her pink ribbons on her cap, while she called to Goodman Brown." Poe uses descriptive words towards the ocean giving it life. "Of the surf-tormented shore" and "one from the pitiless wave" both gave the ocean behavior as if the ocean has a mind of its own. The two pieces of literature have same yet different ways in expressing in how the author uses the techniques.  

     Poe and Hawthorne uses dreaming as a way to make you have to think about if its real or not. Poe wrote the poem to send a message which is always being repeated, “is it a dream within a dream.” The narrator is confused but as he/she is at the beach, the narrator feels the sand between the fingers and thinks is it a dream. If you feel, you know that you’re awake and vivid otherwise not. Hawthorne  purposely confuses the audience with “the next morning, young Goodman Brown came slowly in the street of Salem village, staring around him like a bewildered man.” Goodman Brown didn’t know whether the people around him were trustworthy. So he lived his life not trusting anyone including his wife, Faith because of what he had seen. Poe and Hawthorne both use dreaming as a way to make people think. 

     Both Poe and Hawthorne use  literary techniques that have similarities and differences, and the authors’ ways of interpreting the idea of dreaming. Would you be happy knowing you had a real life dream? Would it affect you?