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Fiction Essay
ENGL 102
Spring 2022
Daniel Berger
Professor Downie
March 22, 2022
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Fiction Essay: “The Destructors” by Graham Greene and “Young Goodman Brown” by
Nathaniel Hawthorne
When it comes to the idea of a fiction essay there are a variety of purposes for authors to
create a writing piece. Whether that is to connect to a particular audience, entertain or develop a
fiction story based off a true story to shed some light and create an informative yet fictional
story. Both authors Greene and Brown demonstrate these ideas in their writing pieces as
entertainment yet informative. As both have strong character development and it is typical for the
reader to be provoked or touched by the character development or feeling a sense of relating to
the characters as they progress throughout the stories. Although, both stories have the same
intent to entertain and touch a particular audience with the message of the story and share a slight
similarity, they are both significantly different stories and are intended for completely different
audiences.
“The Destructors” written by Greene, is mainly focused on character and human
development after the setting of World War II. Demonstrating immoral human intent through his
main character, a young teenage boy who has malicious intent to destroy the only/last standing
house in a neighborhood that was previously destroyed. As “Young Goodman Brown” by
Hawthorne, shows a character struggling with the decision of wrong and right, good and evil,
destroy and create. As the character “Brown” fights this battle of being persuaded by the devil he
also acknowledges the consequences that might occur during the result of his actions. As it
stands both stories have a similar variation of negative actions and the side effects of partaking in
such inhuman motives.
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Brown is torn with the idea of his original motives to work for the devil and carry out the
intent to cause harm, he thinks about his lovely wife “Faith” and what his actions might do to
her. During this conflict he continues onwards and eventually causes an internal conflict within
himself that develops into destroys himself and eventually makes Brown a broken, unmotivated
and destroyed man, confused with himself and his desires. As Brown continues into the forest
with his motives to carry out the will of the devil, he eventually comes across the Devil itself. At
this point of time, he already lost his precious faith, but in fact his wife Faith. He is already
broken by the time he crosses paths with the Devil, and he begins to see glimpses of his beloved
such as pink ribbon’s she used in her hair. As he begins to become weary, confused and in a state
of panic he hears voices lash out and a scream filled with horror, he imagines these voices as
nonother than Faith’s voice. Brown then yells out with a broken heart, “My Faith is gone! There
is no good on earth; sin is but a name” (396). As Brown is clearly broken and gives in, slowly
realizing that his Faith, and faith in humanity were gone, extinguished. Brown’s story continues
in yet a sad mourning throughout the story, as he is unable to unsee the things he saw on his
journey and constantly excludes himself from others and loses all hope of existing as he feels he
can no longer do so without his faith intact. The sins of the world had changed him into a dark,
untrusting and emotionally damage man.
Whereas “The Destructors” by Graham Greene, had a similar destructive, depressing,
gloomy and dark theme to it. As the young teenager, “Trevor” and his group/gang sought out to
destroy the only remaining house after a catastrophic bombing took place after WWII, their goal
was to demolish this remaining house to make it like all the rest, destroyed. During hard times
after a devastating blow to England, these intentions by these teenagers made it even harder for
the community as the intentions were the same as the people who bombed them in the first place,
WC:883
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inhuman. Making the audience remanence of the sad lives during this time. Although Trevor
believes that his motives are pure, and he believes that destroying the remaining house will
benefit the community by making it match the rest of the town of destruction his cause is none
other than negative and inhuman. Giving the example that both of these stories are ironic and
have negative outcomes. As him and his gang continue to provoke upstarts with the townsmen
and more distinctively Mr. Thomas, the owner, represents Trevor’s ambitions to extinguish the
last bit of hope/faith that the town has after the impact from the war. This story reaches the reader
in a similar way that Hawthorne’s story does, evoking different types of emotions onto the
readers.
Even though the authors succeeded in the purpose to reach the audiences emotions, both
stories were relatively different. One story showing how a man loses faith and proceeds into
consideration of working alongside the Devil. While another story shows a young boy destroying
the last building in his area after a terrible war impacted the community. However, both stories
showed a strong connection to negative intentions as if they were inhuman malicious intents to
cause harm. As mentioned before these stories caused the readers to be emotionally involved and
have mixed feelings throughout the stories.
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References:
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Young Goodman Brown. (1835). Literature Approaches to Fiction.
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/english/f1124y-001/resources/Young_Goodman_Brown.pdf
Greene, Graham. The Destructors. (1954). Cengage, MindTap.
https://ng.cengage.com/static/nb/ui/evo/index.html?
deploymentId=60538017217269530962819513&eISBN=9781305969414&id=14317781
13&snapshotId=2839296&
