Young Goodman Brown

Goodman Brown is the main character. He is married to Faith who wears a "pink" ribbon in her hair. He goes into the forest where it is forbidden, because it is a place of evil. He meets a man in the forest who calls himself "the devil." He sees all these religious people from his community who are "doing evil." He sees a pink ribbon fall from the sky, and at the end he tells faith to look away from the evil. At the very end he cannot look anyone in the face and lives a miserable life.

I think that this story deals greatly with religion. First there is Faith. Her name itself is something strong with religion. The pink ribbons also are a symbol of purity. The man with the stick reminds me of the devil in the Garden of Eden. He says every and anything that he can to get Young Goodman Brown into the forest. I think that in life sometimes we do wrong things that we do not want others to know about, whether they are small or little. That is why Goodman Brown was hiding behind trees and stuff from those that were religious to him. Sometimes we want to hold onto faith, but it is so easy to let go of it and turn your back on it. Another important fact is that sometimes in life we can get disappointed by those we think highly of, if they act like humans and do things that can be wrong.

The Facts Concerning a Recent Carnival of Crime in Conneticut

The story was about a man whose conscience comes to torture him. At first he is waiting for his aunt to come, however, a shriveled up man who is his "conscience" comes first. He is tortured by his conscience. The man wants to kill him, but he cannot because the man's heart is too light. When the aunt comes and tortures the man about his life, the conscience because heavy and the man proceeds to kill him. He is left with a life free of his conscience.

I think that the theme definitely plays with the fact of confidence. He is so confident to stand up against his aunt that he drives himself to overcome anything that is in the way. I think that it is definitely psychological. I think he wants to impress his aunt, but the power she has over him is unbearable. He "kills" his conscience as a way of standing up against her.

In the end I think he drove himself into madness. I think he never really saw the "conscience" but had a struggle with himself.

Shades

Shades has a man describing how the night falls onto the earth like a pair of shades. Then he sees the man that lights the lamps and wants to know about him. When he goes to his house no one really knows anything about him. He goes back a year later and the man has passed away.
I think that the story deals with death. Everyone in the beginning seems to fear the dark. It creeps out of all the corners and crevices and engulfs the earth. However, the lamplighter is still the soul within the person. When he dies the lighting of the lamps is gone until someone else takes over. I am gonna go out on a limb and make a connection, when the lamplighter dies he is obviously replaced, which in life someone is always getting replaced.
The lamplighter played an important part in the lives of the citizens of the town. He made it possible to go out at night and not fear the darkeness. However, no one knew the man who did this. He allowed the people to continue living their lives, yet no one seemed to bother, except the narrarator, to go and find out who this man was.