The Value Of Dreams

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The Value of Dreams

People have dreams. They have dreams when they are asleep, or they have dreams that they wish to fulfill in their lifetime. Hitler had a dream. His dream was a goal in which he would do anything to achieve it. Then there are dreams of people who believe that they were adducted by aliens. Just like these people had dreams, so did Goodman Brown and Aylmer. Nathaniel Hawthorne's stories "Young Goodman Brown" and "The Birthmark" both make use of dreams to affect the story and reveal the central characters. With each story, the dreams presented are extremely beneficial to the development of the story as they give the reader a new view of the plot itself, or the characters within. At the same time, however, it becomes difficult to determine how much of the dream has been affected by the character, and how much is pure fantasy.
This is true with Young Goodman Brown, who cannot determine whether the events in his life actually occurred, or if they simply were created in his troubled mind while he slept. In "The Birthmark," Aylmer too is haunted by his nighttime musings as he dreams of mutilating his wife in order to rid her of a small birthmark. This small detail later turns out to foreshadow the conclusion of the story, while giving readers further insight into his diabolical nature. Dreams thusly play an important developmental role in the explication of Hawthorne's characters.
Young Goodman Brown's dream near the end of his story has a most profound effect on his character. "There may be a devilish Indian behind every tree," said Goodman Brown to himself; and he glanced fearfully behind him as he added, "What if the devil himself should be at my very elbow!" (Brown). After a night of making deals with the Devil, having all of his fellow countrymen show their Satanic sympathies and himself becoming affiliated with the Fallen Angel, Brown understandably looks to account these incredible events to a dream sta...