《好小伙布朗》(Young Goodman Brown)里,作者霍桑寫了早年的新英格蘭,故事主人公去出席在半夜舉行的魔鬼聚會,發(fā)現(xiàn)在座的不僅有鎮(zhèn)上所有德高望重的人,甚至還有他的妻子費思...書的主題包括人性的好與壞. 正如霍桑的大部分小說一樣,《好小伙布朗》這部小說自始至終充滿了晦暗、神秘的意象.本文對這種神秘、晦暗的意象進行了雙重解讀：一方面,這體現(xiàn)了霍桑深受清教思想和超驗主義哲學影響的矛盾思想；另一方面,這也反映了霍桑的創(chuàng)作傾向與寫作特色.英文故事簡介：The story begins late one evening in 17th century Salem, Massachusetts, with young Goodman Brown leaving his home and Faith, his wife of three months, to meet with a mysterious figure deep in the forest. As they meet and proceed further into the dark forest, and it is broadly hinted that Goodman Brown's traveling companion is, in fact, the Devil, and that the purpose of their journey is to join in an unspecified but obviously unholy ritual. Goodman Brown is wavering and expresses reluctance, yet they continue on. As they journey Brown discovers others also proceeding to the meeting, many of them his townsfolk whom he had considered good Christians including his minister and deacon and the woman who taught him his catechism. He is astonished and disheartened and determines, once again, to turn back. But now he hears his wife's voice and realizes that she is one of those to be initiated at the meeting. Recognizing that he has lost his Faith (in both senses), he now resolves to carry out his original intention and enthusiastically joins the procession.At the ceremony, carried out at a flame-lit, crude rocky altar in a clearing deep in the forest, the new converts are called to come forth. He and Faith approach the altar and, as they are about to be anointed in blood to seal their alliance with wickedness, he cries out to Faith to look to heaven and resist. In the next instant he finds himself standing alone in the forest, next to the cold, wet rock.The narrator suggests that the experience might have been a dream, but Goodman Brown is deeply shaken. He lives out his days an embittered and suspicious cynic, wary of everyone around him, especially his wife Faith. The story concludes with this dismal statement:"And when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave...they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom."