Joan Easterly's thesis on Young Goodman Brown proposes that Brown is incapable of feeling empathy towards others nor can he repent of his own sins or wrongdoings. Young Goodman Brown is a short story written by Nathaniel Hawthorn. It was published in 1835. The story is set in seventeenth-century Puritan New England. It deals with the Puritan belief that we are born morally corrupt. This explains Brown's inability to change his evil ways or feel sorry for what he has done in the past.
