Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (SparkNotes Literature Guide Series) Book

"The May-Pole of Merry Mount"

A historical allegory set in 17th century New England. The story allegories a mythic pivotal point in American history when the character of the nation was yet to be decided. The pagan revelers dancing around the May-Pole ("Comus' Crew) are brutally ousted by the grim Puritans, whose stern religiosity extinguishes the joy of life; their version of the May-Pole is the whipping post.

"Roger Malvin's Burial"

The story begins immediately after the Battle of Pequawket in 1725, when two men who have just returned from the battle--Roger Malvin and Reuben Bourne--are trying to get home through the woods. Roger is badly injured and asks for Reuben to simply leave him there to die, although he later asks that he come back to bury him. Reuben agrees, but when the latter returns home, he is too conscience-stricken to tell his fiancée Dorcas (Roger's daughter) that he left her father in the woods when he was still alive, so he never returns to bury him. Here we have another iteration of Hawthorne's "secret sin" narratives. The guilt eats away at him for many years. He eventually marries Dorcas and they have a son, though they grow impoverished and are forced to live in the woods, where, out hunting one day, he thinks he hears a deer and shoots: it was his son, instead. He comes to the realization that he shot his son in the same spot where he left Roger Malvin so many years ago.

"The Minister's Black Veil" (1832)

Also set in Puritan New England. When the Minister shows up wearing a black veil on e day, everyone in his congregation is deeply disturbed. The story traces the villagers reactions to his awful veil, which he reveals is a symbol of the secret sin that we all conceal beneath our exterior. The veil is an outward manifestation of an inward impurity.

"My Kinsman, Major Molineux" (1832)

A historical allegory about pre-revolutionary America in the years leading up to 1776. It's set in the 1730s and centers on a British youth names Robin who arrives in Boston looking for his uncle Major Molineux to serve as a connection and help him find work. Everywhere he inquires for his uncle, he is spurned and dismissed. In the end, he finds his uncle being wheeled down the village square after having been tarred and feathered. Robing laughs. An allegory of a changing America, in which the British no longer hold sway. The way to get ahead in this new country, as Robin realizes at the end, is to dissociate oneself from British authority not associate with it.

"Young Goodman Brown" (1835)

An allegory dream vision of the discovery of man's sinful nature. Young Goodman Brown has a revelation in a dream in which he realizes how all of us conceal secret sins within our breasts; even our role models (his catechism teacher, and the minister) are stained with sin. In leaving behind Faith his wife and journeying through the Dark woods, Young Goodman Brown (and the quaint appellation is ironized within the context of the story) goes deeper and deeper into a journey of discovery until he as a vision of all the villagers being baptized by the devil. The story follows a haunting dream logic. When he wakes up, he can never be the same again. He knows to much. He sees men and women for their true sinful natures.

"Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" (1837)

When the old Dr. Heidegger invites four of his friends to his study for an experiment involving a pitcher of water he had a friend retrieve for him from the Fountain of Youth in Florida, things get strange. They drink a glass and a process of rejuvenation begins; they become young and begin acting as foolishly as they did then. The three men compete for the girl. In their merriment, the pitcher of water spills on the ground, and they find they are grown old again. They agree to journey to Florida to get some more water from the fountain.

"The Ambitious Guest" (1841)

A traveler stops by an idyllic domestic cottage in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The house is a place of warmth, family harmony, and rustic simplicity. The children play around the hearth, etc, while the grandmother knits in her rocker. The stranger begins conversing with the family, and he tells them that he plans to be someone great one day. This gets everyone in the family thinking about what their respective greatest ambitious are. A landslide above them begins to fall. They seek refuge in a nearby dwelling but are crushed beneath the landslide. Only the cottage stands. The aspirational optimism (the vanity on the stranger's part) is squashed by the dark and sinister landslide, which which gives rise to a series of haunting ironies about the nature of fate, life, death, anonymity, fame, and human happiness.

"Rappaccini's Daughter" (1844)

Set in Padua. The young Giovanni falls in love with the daughter of Dr. Rappaccini, a botanist who keeps a carefully cultivated garden beside the lodgings Giovanni is living in. All of the plants, Giovanni realizes, are poisonous, and Beatrice--the doctor's daughter--has herself become poisonous through tending them. Giovanni finds that he himself begins to grow poisonous after being in the garden too long. He gets an antidote for Beatrice; she drinks it but she dies.

"The Birth-Mark" (1843)

Aylmer adores his beautiful wife but cant stand the small red birthmark in the shape of a hand on her cheek. The birth-mark is hidden when she blushes but very apparent when her cheeks turn white. The marks--which he takes to be a mark of human imperfection, the bloody hand of mortality claiming his otherwise perfect wife--drives him mad and he devises a drink for his wife to drink that will expunge the mark. She drinks it, trusting him utterly with her life. The mark goes away but she dies as a consequence. Aylmer destroys his wife Giorginanna in trying to perfect her.