Poetry · Chapter
The Ghost of Deacon Brown explained
Deacon Brown, a miserly old man, hides a box of gold in the ground but forgets its location and dies trying to find it.
What happens
Deacon Brown, a miserly old man, hides a box of gold in the ground but forgets its location and dies trying to find it. After his death, his ghost haunts the town, digging for the gold every dark night, causing the townspeople to flee and the town to become deserted.
Free preview opens on this chapter — companions, themes, and character notes appear beside the text.
Narrative arc
Story tension across the book — this chapter sits in Exposition.
- Setup
- Escalation
- Breaking point
- Aftermath
- Closing
The emotional peak occurs when the speaker transforms passive despair into active defiance, declaring "glad de…
Full beat labels and climax notes unlock in the reader.
Follow the arc while readingThemes in this chapter
- Death and Mortality
Deacon Brown dies from his obsessive search for his hidden gold, and his ghost continues to haunt the living.
- Temptation and Fall
The miser's greed leads him to hide his gold, forget its location, and ultimately die, with his ghost perpetuating the town's downfall.
Characters to notice
- Deacon Brown
A miser who hides his gold and forgets where he buried it, dying in the attempt. His ghost returns to haunt the town.
Key passages
“He hid his gold, As has been told, He remembered that he did it; But sad to say, On the very next day, He forgot just where he hid it”
He buried his gold and initially recalled the spot, but the next day he could not remember where he had hidden it.
The central irony of the story: the miser's careful hiding leads to his own loss.
“Then on each dark and gloomy night A form in phosphorescent white, A genuine hair-raising sight, Would wander through the town.”
Every dark night, a glowing white figure, truly terrifying to behold, roamed the town.
Description of the ghostly apparition that haunts the town.
