Point of View of “Young Goodman Brown” Point of view is “one of the most important and persistent concerns in modern treatments of the art of prose fiction” ( Abrams 231). This essay will discuss how the story is told in Nathaniel Hawthorne's “Young Goodman Brown,” what kind of narrator tells it, and through whose perception the reader receives the story – in other words, the point of view of this tale (Axelrod 336 ). In this story the way or point of view with which the author presents the characters, dialogues, actions, etc. is that of a third-person narrator, who uses proper names and third-person pronouns to designate the various characters in the story: YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN went out at sunset, into the street of Salem village, but threw back his head, after having crossed the threshold, to exchange a farewell kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was aptly called, stuck her pretty little head out into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap, as she called out to Goodman Brown. The narrator possesses the ability to read the thoughts and feelings of the protagonist, the young Puritan husband, Goodman Brown, unique among all the characters. As Brown rounds the corner of the meetinghouse, he thinks, “Poor little Faith!” he thought, for his heart smote him. "How unfortunate I am to leave her with such an errand! She too speaks of dreams. It seemed to me, as she spoke, that there was a troubled expression on her face, as if a dream had warned her of the work to be done this evening. But no, no!, it would kill her to think so. Well, she is a blessed angel on earth, and after this night I will cling to her skirts and follow her to Heaven. .... center of the card ......ren, a beautiful procession, other than the neighbors, not a few, have not carved any verses of hope on his tombstone; as his moment of death was grim. It would seem that the narrator becomes omniscient rather than limited in his point of view towards the end of the tale. The vital role that point of view plays in "Young Goodman Brown" makes it obvious why Abrams would claim that point of view is "one of the most important and persistent concerns in modern treatments of the art of prose fiction." (231).WORKS CITED Brams, MH A Glossary of Literary Terms, 7th ed. New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1999.Axelrod, Rise B. St. Martin's Guide to Writing, 2nd ed. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988.Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown." 1835. http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~daniel/amlit/goodman/goodmantext.html