Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener and Young Goodman Brown compare in several ways through their symbolism, themes, imagery, and characterization, but are also different in terms of the setting and point of view from the structure of narration.  Their settings are in different historic eras and times that don’t relate at all and the point of view in each story is completely different.  First person point of view is used in Bartleby the Scrivener and third person omniscient point of view is used in Young Goodman Brown.  They both use action symbolically and contain the theme of selfishness.  In Bartleby the Scrivener, action is used symbolically by the fact that Bartleby doesn’t take action like a corpse while in Young Goodman Brown, action is used symbolically by the way Goodman Brown does take action in the story.  

Symbolism is used to reveal the hidden meaning behind the texts and is one of the main points of comparison between Bartleby the Scrivener and Young Goodman Brown.  The symbols in Young Goodman Brown include Faith’s pink ribbon and the devil’s staff.  Faith’s pink ribbon represents her purity. The pink color of the ribbon represents innocence and gaiety while the ribbons themselves represent modest, innocent decoration.  The pink ribbon is mentioned a couple times in the beginning of the story and later on when Goodman Brown is in the forest struggling with his perception of the goodness of other people.  When the pink ribbon is mentioned in the beginning, it is meant to associate the characterization of Faith as youthful and happy.  When Goodman Brown finds the ribbon fluttering from the sky in the forest, he thinks it is a sign that Faith has lost her goodness, purity, and innocence while joining the devils evil side.  But then when he comes out of the woods, Faith is there to greet him wearing her pink ribbon which is a sign that she is still good, innocent, and pure.  The devil’s staff is a symbol of the biblical serpent that represents evil.  This part of the story when Goodman Brown is in the woods with the devil is very similar to the story of Adam and Eve in the bible.  The devil in this story convinces Goodman to use the staff to travel faster just like the serpent in the Bible convinces Eve to eat the fruit from the tree.  The fact that Goodman Brown took the staff from the devil reveals that he is heading towards the path of evil.  In Young Goodman Brown, action was used symbolically.  Goodman Brown took action when shouted saying that his faith was gone but he was referring to wife when he saw her hair in the sky.  His wife, Faith, wasn’t gone but instead his actual faith in his religion was gone.  The symbolic meaning of innocence from the ribbons was also lost when he saw Faith in the sky leaving and he was alone in the forest and didn’t have faith in the religion.  Similarly, Bartleby the Scrivener uses action symbolically.  When Bartleby is first introduced in the story, he is described as “cadaverous” and corpselike which makes him seem as if he is surrounded by death.  Every time Bartleby was asked to complete a task, he wouldn’t take action just like a corpse that doesn’t take action.  A symbol in Bartleby the Scrivener is the dead letters.  Reading all of the dead letters was a depressing task that led Bartleby to an emotional detachment and depressing state.  

Selfishness is a theme that both Bartleby the Scrivener and Young Goodman Brown share.  The themes in Bartleby include charity and selfishness.  In the story, the lawyer thinks of charity as cost and returns.  He feels bad for Bartleby at first but then realizes that he can use him and that he would be mistreated at another office and not as useful for them so he keeps Bartleby employed.  Through his “charity” of helping Bartleby he is actually just being selfish and making himself feel like he has a good conscience.  Then when Bartleby declines all of his offers and the other employers complain about him, he decides to keep Bartleby as a charity case.  The themes in Young Goodman Brown include the weakness of public morality, the inevitable loss of innocence, the fear of the wilderness, and overall selfishness.  Through the theme of weakness of public morality, it is suggested that it is dangerous to base a society on moral principles and religious faith because members of the society don’t make their own moral decisions.  Their faith becomes weak when they don’t make their own moral decisions and copy everyone else around them.  The inevitable loss of innocence was shown through Goodman Brown when he made the choice to meet the devil in the forest.  Whether it was real or just a dream, his loss of innocence was still inevitable because he brought his realization upon himself that everyone around him is corrupt and if it was a dream then it truly reveals his dark side.  Fear of the wilderness is also expressed through Goodman Brown because he believes that the forest is full of devilish, frightening, and dark things and that the devil could be hiding in there.  He also hides in the forest when he sees Goody Cloyse and Deacon Gookin walk by because he is ashamed to be seen in the forest.  Then once he is taken over by the evil he is more comfortable in the forest because he fits in where the evil belongs.  Through all of these themes we can see that Goodman Brown is selfish and is easily taken over by the devil and evil because of it.  

The narration in each of the stories is one of the differences between Bartleby the Scrivener and Young Goodman Brown.  In Bartleby the Scrivener, the lawyer narrates the story in first person.  When he narrates the story he reports it instead of influencing it and leaves the character neutral without showing knowledge of them so the reader can make their own judgement about the characters through the events in the story.  In contrast, the narrator in Young Goodman Brown is in third person and the reader doesn’t know who the narrator is.  The point of view in the story is omniscient so the narrator knows everything about the characters such as their feelings, thoughts, motives, and the things they do.  

The setting is another difference between the two stories.  Their settings are in different historic eras and both happen at different places and times.  Bartleby the Scrivener takes place in an office in New York during the 19th century when there was no technology being used for the office such as typewriters and photocopy machines.  The narrator only talks about the character’s role in the office and the work that went on during that time.  In contrast, Young Goodman Brown takes place at night in the forest during the 17th century in a community of Christians in Salem.    
