The novella Pale Horse, Pale Rider, authored by Katherine Anne Porter and published in 1939, is set against the backdrop of the 1918–1919 Spanish flu pandemic towards the end of World War I. It narrates the dual story of individual and societal trauma and survival amidst the pandemic, contributing to the cultural memory of that era in American history. The narrative draws heavily on...
“Young Goodman Brown” has been read, among others, as Hawthorne’s commentary on Puritan obsession with sin, as an exploration of the internal demons of the human psyche, or as an allegory of losing one’s faith. Moreover, since the story does not settle whether Brown is right about his neighbors’ hypocrisy, scholars tend to either argue in favor of the reality of Goodman Brown’s vision or see in...