After reading "The Cask of Amontillado" and "Young Goodman Brown," I have recognized the three components of the Romantic story. Gothicism, the Grotesque, and Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, are all key building blocks of the Romantic story.
             Consider the different way that each author entwines the Gothic fundamentals of literature into their story. In "The Cask of Amontillado," the narrator, Montresor waits until the carnival season, a time of "supreme madness," to seek revenge on Fortunato who insulted him. Hawthorne doesn't show us the wild life and times of the carnival season, but he does show us the wild side of the puritan life when we see the townspeople performing satanic rituals in the woods.
             The carnival and catacombs that Poe describes, are examples of the fantastic settings that are part of the Romantic story.
             "The nitre!" I said; "see, it increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults. We are below the river's bed. The drops of moisture trickle among the bones. (76)
             Hawthorne doesn't really have a fantastic setting; his is more of a mystery. Where is goodman Brown going? What will he find? And finally, at the end of the story, along with the narrator and goodman Brown we ask ourselves, "Had goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest, and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting?" (196).
             Both Montresor and goodman Brown have hidden secrets, Montresor's secrets are a little darker and better disguised than goodman Brown's are. Montresor's secrets are the catacombs, and the bodies that reside in them, which will also in time include Fortunato's. Young goodman Brown likewise has secrets, but at the same time he is not aware of them yet Some secrets that are revealed to young goodman Brown are the secrets of his ancestors. When goodman Brown tells the old man, "My father never went into the woods on su...