Nathaniel Hawthorne Critiques Puritan Society in His Works, Young Goodman Brown and The Scarlet Letter
Many American writers have scrutinized religion through their works of literature, however none had the enthusiasm of Nathaniel Hawthorne. A handful of Hawthorne's works are clear critiques of seventeenth century Puritan society in New England. Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown and The Scarlet Letter illustrate his assessment by showing internal battles within characters, hypocrisy in religious figures, atypical punishment for crimes, and accenting women's roles in Puritan society. Firstly, Hawthorne's literature often stresses internal battles in main characters. In both Young Goodman Brown and The Scarlet Letter, these battles are between morals and sin (both past and future). In Young Goodman Brown, Brown goes into the woods and meets Satan. Satan, in the form of Brown's deceased grandfather, asks the weary Brown to take his staff. The staff "bore the likeness of a great black snake... almost be seen to twist and wriggle... like a living serpent" (Hawthorne 1237). The comparison of the strangers' staff as a snake is very reminiscent of the Bible's story of Eve and the serpent in the Garden of Eden. "Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God made" (Genesis 3:1) and as we know Eve ate the fruit from the forbidden tree and succumbed to the serpent's temptation. However, unlike Eve, Brown did not take the serpent-like staff because he knew he was being tested. Goodman Brown was also ethically confronted when he sees his wife, Faith, among a group of high standing community and church members in a circle of religious converts who plan to switch to Satanism. Seeing his adored wife ready to worshi...
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...en upstanding, moral individuals, yet it appears that Hawthorne wants to show us examples of those who were not unblemished.
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Some believe that in 1947 a UFO crashed in Roswell, New Mexico. This crash is believed by many to be the reason for the creations of area 51 and has remained the front and center of all controversies since the inception of area 51, one cannot talk about area 51 without mentioning the crash in Roswell. Some local’s from Roswell claim they witnessed the removal of debris and suspect that it was a flying saucer. Adding to this suspicion, the Army Air Corps initially announce that the wreckage was that of a “flying saucer”, only to later retract their statement, and instead c...
The preserving modern folk tale that is the invasion of aliens, is fully knotted within the cultural fear that one day in the near future, a threat of some unknown origin will be more powerful, more capable at warfare than we American’s can ever be. No mater the impossibility, it is a perceived end to the very short colonization of the North Americas. In 1947 a few miles from Roswell, NW, Mack Brazel found debris from an unidentified flying object scattered in a three-mile arc on his land. According to the myth told by the International UFO Museum Research Center in Roswell, NW, the metal had strange pictorial writings on the “I” beams and were purple in color. (IUFORMC NM Inc.) This tale is so widely told in Roswell, that there has been a whole industry developed there to preserve this ledged of the alien crash landing and the Military’s collection of the debris and cover-up of the visitors from outer space.
All Bullard references from: Bullard, Thomas E.: UFO Abduction Reports: The Supernatural Kidnap Narrative Returns in Technological Guise, The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 102, No. 404. (Apr. - Jun., 1989), pp. 147-170.
... like Hester. He is implying that she is the victim and that the Puritans are actually at fault for this sin. Hawthorne's main goal is to convey the Puritans as sinful and unholy. He does not approve of the sin they hide and he thinks there should be punishment for their actions.
The UFO crash site in Roswell New Mexico in 1947 was the start of people’s interest in extraterrestrials, the discovery of military secrets and experiments kept from society, and the start, in search of answering are we alone in this universe.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown." Norton Anthology of American Literature. Vol1. Ed. Nina Baym, et al. New York: Norton, 1994. 1198-1207.
Ever look up at the sky and just wonder if there is life anywhere else? Have you seen anything in the sky that is almost unexplainable? What if your thoughts really came true? The thought of the existence of aliens seems to have been around since the beginning of time. There is one incident in particular that really hits home when talking about the subject, the UFO incident of Roswell, New Mexico.
A UFO fell in Roswell New Mexico in late June or early July in 1947. The day after a fierce thunderstorm, rancher W. W. “Mack” Brazel went out with his son on horses to go check on sheep. While he was out riding, he noticed strange metal debris scattered over a large part of his ranch. As he inspected the land, he saw a huge trench several hundred feet long gouged out of the earth. He decided to gather some the unusual material he saw and took it back home with him to ...
The puritan roots that ran in the northeastern part of the country was a way that Hawthorne used to show his underlying messages in many of his works. However, as opposed to the previous works that the country produced, Hawthorne’s used the puritan religion as a means to an end, not as an example or testimony of how to live. A keen example of this is in Hawthorne’s 1835 work, “Young Goodman Brown.” The symbolism is evident as first simply from the title. Hawthorne is attempting to write a story about a young, good man, creating this persona by creating the image of a devout person, first hinting at this through his location, Salem (Hawthorne 87). Salem is the location of the witch trials that Hawthorne’s ancestors were a part of, and from this location Hawthorne is showing that Brown is a puritan, but also that he is a part of a society that can lose sight of their shortcomings. This is something that would not be evident in earlier American writings. Writing about the shortcomings of devout people was not widely recognized as religion to these people was life
Lathrop, G. P., ed. "Hawthorne, Nathaniel." The Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature. Binghamton, New York: Vail-Ballou, 1962. 439-40. Print.
According to Jacobs, people first started to report alien abductions in the early 1900’s. In Florida, a Boys Scoutmaster, Sonny Desvergers, asserted that he saw a ball of light coming from a flying saucer and then lost conscious (Jacobs). He woke up 45 minutes later in a different place from where he was before (Jacobs). At the time, his case was judged to be a hoax (Jacobs). The only thing that investigators couldn’t seem to figure out was how Desvergers was able to burn the roots of the grass where he was “abducted,” but not the top of the grass (Jacobs).
Portrayal of Puritan Society in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter In the introductory sketch to Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel the "The Scarlet Letter", the reader is informed that one of the author's ancestors persecuted the Quakers harshly. The latter's son was a high judge in the Salem witch trials, put into literary form in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" (Judge Hathorne appears there). We learn that Hawthorne feels ashamed for their deeds, and that he sees his ancestors and the Puritan society as a whole with critical eyes. Consequently, both open and subtle criticism of the Puritans' practices is applied throughout the novel.
. At the town of Roswell an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) crash landed in the quiet little town. Many Roswell residents testified that they saw a burning object plummet toward the ground before exploding upon impact. The Air Force's initial reaction to the incident was to tell the world that they did not know what it was. This shows me evidence that they had no “protocol” for this kind of occurrence, thus the Military leader stepped in and covered everything up. This incident caught the attention of citizens of the United States, local officials, and the media. It has especially gained interest in a variety of Special interest groups/ groups that specialize in researching and investigating events that involve UFO’s.
Whether or not the Roswell incident truly involved a UFO remains unclear. How ever, the military cover-up only served to fuel the fire of our imaginations. Interest continues to grow, as questions remain unanswered. Even Bill Clinton has been quoted as saying “…If the United States Air Force did recover alien bodies, they didn’t tell me about it either, and I want to know”(qtd. in Wright 105).