Similarities Between Twain And Hawthorne

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Representations of nature in Hawthorne and Twain Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mark Twain were both significant novelists and short story writers of the nineteenth century American literature. One of the most famous work of Hawthorne is his short story titled Good Youngman Brown, while Twain is best known for his novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the "Great American Novel". Both Hawthorne's short story, and Twain's second novel includes representations of nature. This paper is going to first analyze the above mentioned shorty story and novel from the point of view of nature, then make a comparison between them. The short story "Good Youngman Brown" was published in 1835. There are three main characters…show more content…
Goodman Brown wanders through a dreary forest. This is the first point in the short story, where we meet nature. The forest is used for a rendezvous between Goodman Brown and the old man, having a perfect atmosphere for such a meeting. The whole forest was introduced to the reader as a gloomy and dark place, full of negative attributes. ("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. It was all as lonely as could be".) The old man appeared suddenly and unexpectedly, making the whole situation more fearful. As they met they were venturing into the deepest and darkest place of the forest, intensifying all these negative feelings that were present from the moment Goodman Brown entered the forest. The old man wanted to give a staff to Goodman Brown at all costs, which he refused to take. Hawthorne uses another representation of nature in the object of the staff, which was shaped as a snake. Moreover, at the same time the presence of that particular animal, the snake, is a reference to the Bible, as it is a very well known symbol of evil. This whole scene can be looked at exactly the…show more content…
The protagonist of the novel is Huck Finn, and the other significant main characters are Jim, Huck's companion, and Tom Sawyer from Mark Twain's other novel. Huck is a boy from lower class with a drunkard father. Widow Douglas tries to upbring him properly, but Huck refuses in his own ways. He does not know the social standards like Tom Sawyer who is from a middle-class family. Everything he was thought about society is questioned at the moment he travels down to the river. Nature is represented in the form of the Mississippi River, which is the symbol of freedom for Huck and his companion, Jim. Traveling on their raft gave them something they could understand as freedom. Huck could escape his drunkard father, while Jim could move towards the free states where he would not have to live in slavery. Even though they felt free from civilization on the river, they had to find out that they are not really away from the bad effects of society, as they a flood brought them to the riverbanks where they got into contact with the real world, dragging them out from their own reality into the world of crime and stolen treasure. This whole image of the river can be seen as a comparison between society and falling back to nature. Nature is the place where none of the negative behavior of humanity is present, where there is harmony and peace, in contrast to the society where there are given standards to fit, there is
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