Archetypes in "Young Goodman Brown" and "Sweat"

Hi guys! From our reading this week, "Young Goodman Brown" seems to be the perfect story to look at through the archetypal lens. YGB is filled will archetypes that most people would be familiar with (even without much background knowledge on archetypes). Because this story is still complicated in other ways, I would definitely consider using this as one of the first stories in an archetypal unit, but probably with a higher level group or grade.

Just on the first page, there were many archetypes that can easily be connected to other pieces of literature. The dreary road, the traveler, the devil, the clock, the forest, the staff, the snake/serpent, the pious old lady are some of these archetypes. It could be a nice activity for students to take a few of these from YGB and brainstorm other books, TV, movies, etc. where they've seen these symbols, characters, and settings.

YGB would also be an interesting story to study because Hawthorne sets up these well-known archetypes, but then he distorts them as Young Goodman Brown goes deeper and deeper into the forest. Hawthorne uses the preconceptions that come along with the archetype in order to further support his message.

"Sweat" wasn't filled with different archetypes as YGB was, but there was definitely one prominent archetypal situation; that of an abusive husband and submissive wife. However, Hurston gives so much power to Delia because she is able to stand up to Syke, she fights back against the limitations of her gender, and essentially, she also breaks the archetype that she had been stuck in for years.

I think it is pretty interesting how both of these short stories use the archetype as a strategy. By definition, as readers when we encounter an archetype, we assume that we know what to expect. However, Hawthorne and Hurston used archetypes and our assumptions to surprise us when the characters/symbols were not exactly what we thought they would be.