Frankly, I found the story amusing. It resembles some of Chaucer's stories in The Canterbury
Tales. What makes it amusing is that Hawthorne represents both the husband and wife of being so
insufferably good. The husband even has the name Goodman, and his wife is acting so nice and
sweet and good that she seems like a caricature of a perfect housewife. I was also reminded of
Al Capp's comic strip L'il Abner. There was a character named (I believe) J. Sweetpants
Goodbody. He was a rich philanthropist who had a reputation for being exceedingly good. But
every so often he couldn't stand being good anymore, and he used to have his chauffeur drive him
up into L'il Abner's country where he would go around...
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