Young Goodman Brown Essay Research Paper Short

Young Goodman Brown Essay, Research Paper

Short Story Paper: Thematic Illustration

Young Goodman Brown

Nathaniel Hawthorne comes from an interesting background. He was born in Salem and subsequently returned to populate at that place. He was a descendent of William Hathorne, a puritan justice who persecuted Quakers, and John Hathorne, a puritan magistrate who participated in the Salem enchantress tests. Hawthorne & # 8217 ; s kinship to these two luminaries of puritan history makes the narrative & # 8220 ; Young Goodman Brown, & # 8221 ; all the more interesting. Hawthorne alludes to John Hathorne when he writes about Goodman Brown & # 8217 ; s & # 8220 ; fellow traveller & # 8221 ; noticing on Brown & # 8217 ; s gramps, who & # 8220 ; lashed the Quaker adult female so cleverly through the streets of Salem. & # 8221 ;

& # 8220 ; Young Goodman Brown & # 8221 ; is about one adult male & # 8217 ; s journey through the forests with the Satan and his brushs that make him doubt his religion in himself, his married woman, and the community in which they reside. The subject of this narrative is that beyond any intangible immorality, the immorality that work forces do is finally the more damaging. Throughout the narrative Hawthorne uses puting and characters as symbols stand foring different facets of good and evil and he uses the secret plan to develop the eventual win-over of immorality over & # 8220 ; Goodman & # 8221 ; Brown & # 8217 ; s & # 8220 ; Faith. & # 8221 ;

Not surprisingly & # 8220 ; Young Goodman Brown & # 8221 ; takes topographic point in Salem during the puritan epoch. The narrative begins with Goodman Brown going from his married woman in the small town to run into with and take a amble in the wood with a & # 8220 ; fellow-traveler & # 8221 ; the Satan.

The contrast between the wood and the town is symbolic. On the exterior, it seems like a normal, spiritual Puritan small town, but when one goes in deep, one sees there is a centre of darkness. The deep, dark wood in the puritan town represents the internal immorality of the villagers. The wood is viewed as cryptic, unknown and inhabited by the Satan, while the town is pleasant safe and where his married woman, & # 8220 ; Faith, & # 8221 ; is. During Goodman Brown & # 8217 ; s walk through the & # 8220 ; dark forest, & # 8221 ; he sees and learns that many of his wise mans and relations have chosen the way of immorality. The wood is where all the respectable people of the town go to vent their immorality while exterior of the forest, they seem like they are pure and good. Hawthorne adds to the symbolism by bodying the trees & # 8220 ; which hardly stood aside to allow the narrow way weirdo through & # 8221 ; as Brown & # 8220 ; walks alongside a drab road. & # 8221 ;

Hawthorne uses the characters of the narrative besides to stand for good and evil. The names of the chief character and his married woman are dry. Faith, in the actual context of the narrative, is Goodman Brown & # 8217 ; s married woman. In the connotative sense, Faith represents Brown & # 8217 ; s existent religion in God and goodness of world. She is a symbol of Brown & # 8217 ; s religion who so becomes tainted by

immorality. The pink threads in Faith’s cap represent pureness, white, tainted by the evilness of the Satan, ruddy. He believes that his married woman, Faith is good. Although the Satan shows Brown that his male parent, the deacon, and the remainder of the townsfolk turned to evil, he will non travel with the Devil because of his ideas of Faith. There is a certain point in the journey when he asks where his Faith is, at this point, he is symbolically seeking his ain religion in goodness, or the righteous way and is inquiring why he is on this way with the Satan. Toward the terminal, when he sees his married woman among the others in the forests, a participant of the ceremonial, he loses faith. He wakes up and is left suffering, entirely and distrustful of all the villagers including his married woman.

The chief character & # 8217 ; s name, Goodman Brown, is dry because for all his & # 8220 ; goodness & # 8221 ; and faith in his beliefs, he becomes the one individual in the small town who personifies evil. In the terminal of the narrative, the event alterations Goodman Brown & # 8217 ; s life and, whether it was world or a trick played by the Satan in Brown & # 8217 ; s dream, the consequence it had on him lasts the remainder of his life. Brown doesn & # 8217 ; t swear anyone, He doubts everyone, and sees immoralities in everyone. He becomes & # 8220 ; austere, sad, darkly meditative, and distrustful. & # 8221 ; Brown would non take part in singing holy Psalmss. Goodman Brown & # 8220 ; would turn pale whenever the curate spoke from the bible. & # 8221 ; He shrank from his married woman, scowled when his & # 8220 ; household knelt down for supplication & # 8221 ; and his & # 8220 ; deceasing hr was gloom. & # 8221 ;

The & # 8220 ; fellow-traveler & # 8221 ; who all of a sudden appears & # 8220 ; at the pes of an old tree & # 8221 ; is symbolic of immorality and seems to be the Satan. He carries a staff shaped in the image of a serpent that & # 8220 ; assumes life. & # 8221 ; The staff besides consumes life as is it does when the Satan uses it to transport & # 8220 ; Goody Cloyse & # 8221 ; to her finish. The Satan allows Brown to see corruptness. The devil magnifies Brown & # 8217 ; s enticement when he tells him of his relations and equals yielding to these evil behaviors. When he shows Brown these people that are his relations and wise mans choose to walk with the Satan, Goodman Brown becomes disheartened. He can no longer swear anyone. After the journey Brown doubts everyone & # 8217 ; s religion and no longer trusts what people say. Everyone is evil.

The journey through the forests is a metaphor for the journey that Goodman Brown and all worlds, must confront in taking which way to take in life. This narrative revolves around Goodman Brown & # 8217 ; s determination to fling his once pious life for one of hatred, misgiving and wretchedness. He becomes evil. In the terminal, few people were willing to admit his being & # 8220 ; when he was born to his grave, besides neighbours non a few, carved no hopeful poetry upon his tombstone. & # 8221 ; In consequence, he became the immorality that everyone else turned their dorsum on.