In modern society, “corruption” connotes financial corruption, dishonest dealings, or underhanded deals in business or politics. The culprits risk wasting other people's money and are expected to suffer emotionally, but romantic literature emphasizes the more dangerous effects of internal corruption. For example, Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat" and Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" each highlight the corrupt paths taken by the main characters. On the surface, the narrator of “The Black Cat” and Goodman Brown lead a comfortable life filled with kindness and love; their women represent these positive lifestyles. As each plot unfolds, the characters experience corruption through temptation, causing them to change internally and view the world with a more sinister mindset. They both try to resist corruption, but end up submitting to the dark force. Although the moral journeys of the two characters seem to mirror each other, in fact the causes of their corruption and the changes they experience differ remarkably. Their various trials ultimately lead each character to flee the love of others for different reasons. While each author writes a unique story about their character's demise, Hawthorne and Poe both demonstrate how a primitive human desire can be the ultimate root of temptation and corruption and how its fulfillment can have harmful consequences. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay From the beginning, the narrator and Goodman Brown have a similar outlook on life. They both hold strongly to certain innate characteristics: the Narrator is very fond of animals and Goodman Brown respects pious people. These characteristics go so far as to be possessed by their own wives. The Narrator mentions his joy at “[finding] in my wife a disposition to my own” love for domestic animals of all kinds (Poe). Likewise, Brown's wife, symbolically named Faith, is a "blessed angel on earth" whom Brown will follow to heaven (Hawthorne). Both wives equally love their husbands as much as husbands love the objects of their own affection. Furthermore, the two main characters share a similar satisfaction with life: the Narrator announces that "never was [he] so happy as when he stroked or caressed" animals (Poe), just as Brown states that he “will cling to [Faith’s] skirts.” after his evil design this evening (Hawthorne). However, as the narrator and Brown fall into their respective pits of corruption, they both lose their once essential traits. Everyone goes through an ordeal that changes their outlook on life. They are no longer innocent and loving men, because temptation has corrupted them to the point of causing every man to suffer traumatically. The narrator of "The Black Cat" undergoes a transformation in which "his general temperament and character...experience a radical change for the worse" (Poe), and on a similar level Brown returns to his previous faith in God and renounces his soul to the devil, crying “come, devil; for this world is given to you” (Hawthorne). These two changes occur within the characters as a result of their submission to temptation. Nothing has changed aside from their own moral beliefs. The characters themselves experience a change in the way they see the world, which reworks their beliefs and modifies their actions. Eventually, they both arrive in a state of self-destruction. Last similarity, none of the characters : «.