Journey’s are an inevitable part of life. Whether it’s an internal or external experience, the outcome of the journey itself could always be beneficial for self-growth. In “The Story of an Hour,” Mrs. Mallard, the main character, gets the news that her husband had passed away from a railroad disaster. After she had heard the news, she went away to her room and began to stare out of the window and looked out into the new spring life. Her internal journey began when “she sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair quite motionless,” and that she felt that something was coming for her and she was sitting there waiting for it to come. “ She felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.” Mrs. Mallard abandoned herself and uttered words underneath her breath that she as “Free,” and she kept whispering “Free! Body and soul free!” It was like she was drinking in a elixir of life while the window was open. When she arose, she walked out her room and downstairs to see someone opening up the door, and there stood

Spann 2 her husband. When Richards went to reach for Mrs. Mallard, he was too late. The doctors said “she had died of heart disease- of joy that kills.” (Barnet 23-24) In the story of “Young Goodman Brown,” Goodman Brown is not only taking an eternal journey but he is also taking an internal journey as well. a journey for one night, as begins his quest down the dark gloomy road in the forest. His internal journey starts when he’s in the forest and begins to look around, afraid of what might be behind each tree, thinking that there might be Indians or even the devil himself lurking there. He soon comes across a man in the road who greets him as if he had been waiting for him. The man offers Goodman Brown the staff that he is holding, saying that it might help him walk faster, but Goodman Brown refuses. As Brown continues his journey with the man the run into an old woman hobbling through the woods, and Goodman Brown recognizes Goody Cloyse, who he knows to be a pious, respected woman from the village. She identifies the man that Brown is walking with as the devil and reveals herself to be a witch, on her way to the devil’s evil forest ceremony. The man says that Goodman Brown should have a rest. Before disappearing, he gives Goodman Brown his staff, telling him that he can use it for transport to the ceremony if he changes his mind. As he sits and gathers himself, Goodman Brown hears horses traveling along the road and hides once again. Goodman began to hear voices of the minister of the church and Deacon who were also on their way to the ceremony. Shocked, Goodman Brown believed that even though everyone else in the world has gone to the devil, he believed that he would stay true to faith but, soon after he heard another voice that sounded like Faith’s he began to scream her name, and a pink ribbon from her cap flutters down from the sky. Certain that there is no good Spann 3 in the world because Faith has turned to evil, Goodman Brown grabbed the staff which pulled him quickly through the forest toward the ceremony. When he reached the clearing where the ceremony is taking place, the trees around it are on fire, and he can see in the firelight the faces of various respected members of the community, along with more disreputable men and women and Indian priests. But to his belief he didn’t see Faith, and he starts to hope once again that she might not be there. Then a figured appeared on a rock and told the congregation to present the converts. Goodman Brown thinks he sees his father beckoning him forward and his mother trying to hold him back. Before he can rethink his decision, the minister and Deacon Gookin drag him forward. Goody Cloyse and Martha Carrier bring forth another person, robed and covered so that her identity is unknown. After telling the two that they have made a decision that will reveal all the wickedness of the world to them, the figure tells them to show themselves to each other. Goodman Brown sees that the other convert is Faith. Goodman Brown tells Faith to look up to heaven and resist the devil, then suddenly finds himself alone in the forest. The next day when Goodman Brown returns home to his village, and everyone in the village pass him he believes that they are evil. From the minister, to the deacon, the little girl, and even to his wife faith. Brown is uncertain of how to make out what happened out in the forest, and for the rest of his life he doesn’t trust anyone in the village and lives the rest of his life in gloom and fear. ( Barnet 118-126) Spann 4
In the story “Cat in the Rain,” it starts talking about an American couple that has stopped and stayed in a hotel, and the scenery that faced the room that they were in. The American wife stood at the window where she saw a cat “crouched under one of the dripping green tables.” The wife then tells her husband who is sitting on the bed reading that she is going outside to get the cat. The American wife then made her way downstairs of the hotel towards the hotel owner and told them where the cat was and where they could go retrieve her at. As the American wife and the maid went out in the rain to go get the cat, when they came upon the table where the cause was it was gone. The American wife became when she wasn’t to get the cat and started to think about why she wanted the cat she said, “I want to have the kitty to sit on my lap and purr when I stroke her.” She kept repeating to her husband of how much she wanted a cat. “In the doorway stood the maid. She held a big tortoise-shell cat pressed tight against her and swung down against her body.” The American wife told the maid padrone me and the maid told her that signora told her to bring her the cat. This shows that her journey wasn’t in vain and that in the end she got whether it was the one she wanted or not. (Barnet 57-58)
In the other selections that we have read in class, those characters as well have been through journey’s as well whether they were internal or even external, or in some cases both. In the story “A&P,” the cashier journey is both internal and external. His internal being that he thinks about the three girls life and how it is and the external journey being him quitting his job to go be with them, in the end he Spann 5 thought the girls cared about him because he took up for them but that wasn’t the case and he was out a job as well. In “Shiloh,” the journey for Norma Jean was external when they took the trip and she walk toward a bluff by the water and begins to hobble toward it, makes it seem like she was going to jump off of the edge of it. In the passage “A Worn Path,” Phoenix Jackson’s Journey was an external one when she went out to get medicine for her grandson. In the end she was able to get the medicine for him. In Pinwiski journal he says that during Jackson’s journey she overcame many obstacles. In Guevara analysis on the story “Misery,” she talks about the author describes the main character internal journey on dealing with the loss of his son
In conclusion each character went through a journey weather it was internal, external, or even both. We saw in the “Story of an Hour,” Ms. Mallard go through an Internal journey where she thought about her life without her husband being there but in the end her husband had not passed which lead her to have a heart attack and die. It was joy that killed her. In “Young Goodman Brown,” we saw him go through both an internal and also an external journey the internal journey when he begins his walk through the forest and starts to think that there might be a devilish indian behind every tree ,and the external journey he endured was his walk through the forest in the end when he returned home he started to look at everyone differently and for the remainder of his life he lived it in gloom. In “Cat in the Rain,” we saw the American go on an external journey to get a cat that she saw outside and in the end the maid brings her one but we don’t know if that’s the one Spann 6 she wanted. So every journey brought out a different outcome for the characters, you never know what’s going to happen.