In the play "Faust" by Johann Goethe, Gretchen's character envelops extreme aspects of Virgin Mary and of Eve. Mary acts as the symbol of the mother of mankind, the pure woman who makes men's salvation possible. She has no evil in her at all. In contrast, Eve is the archetypal figure of the fallen woman, the cause of man's suffering and damnation. She symbolizes death, destruction, and human depravity.
Eve is the antithesis of Mary; together the two archetypes correspond to the two sides of Gretchen's character. When Gretchen is first introduced in the play, she appears to be the ideal of innocence and purity. When Faust tries to talk to her on the street, she refuses. "I'm not a lady, am not fair; I can go home without your care." (2607) A properly brought up young woman would never allow herself to be picked up on the street. It is her naiveté that attracts Faust most of all.
"I've never seen [Gretchen's] equal anywhere! So virtuous, modest, through and through!" (2610-1) Even Mephistopheles acknowledges her virtue. He calls her an "innocent, sweet dear!" (3007). Goethe further identifies Gretchen as a saint when Gretchen's bedroom becomes a shrine to Faust. Faust uses religious language to describe the room. "Welcome, sweet light, which weaves through this sanctuary.
Seize my heart, you sweet pain of love, you that live languishing on the dew of hope! How the feeling of stillness breathes out order and contentment all around. In this poverty, what fullness! In this prison, what holiness!" (2687-94) Just from being in her room, he feels spiritual sacredness, often associated with shrines of saints. He imagines her bed as a "father's throne"(2696) with "a flock of children clinging swarmed" (2697) around it, thus associating Gretchen with maternity.
A large part of Faust's attraction to Gretchen is the image of a virgin mother he sees in her, the ideal of feminine purity. Gretchen's strong religious background further strengthens her saintly image. The prayer in the Ramparts scene is an example of her religious training. "Oh, bend Thou, Mother of Sorrows; send Thou a look of pity on my pain." (3587-9) Gretchen looks on the world from a religious perspective. She wants to make Faust's actions consistent with her religious upbringing. "How do you feel about religion?
… But without desire [you revere the Holy Sacraments], alas! It's long since you confessed or went to mass!" (3415-23) Gretchen can sense Mephistopheles is devil.
as mine!” To Hester, there is no reasons to put both shame on her and her partner when she can take all the shame. She proves herself to be selfless, another strong characteristic that exemplifies feminist attributes in the book. At first, when Hester is confronted by her ex-husband Chillingworth, she is portrayed as weak and feeble. This trait does not go on to prove Hester as a huge feminist character for the Scarlet Letter, but as the book continues, Hester receives the strength to stand up to him and realizes there is no need ...
Kurt Vonnegut’s background had an endless influence upon his writing. In his early years, Vonnegut was a private in the 106th infantry division in World War II. He and five scouts were caught behind enemy lines, and then captured. They were held POWs and were beaten on various occasions. In 1945, they witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany. Kept during this time in a slaughterhouse, this is part of the inspiration for Slaughterhouse-five. After being released from the Slaughterhouse, Vonnegut called Dresden “utter destruction” and “carnage unfathomable”. This distressing time in his life led to one of the many themes of Slaughterhouse-five which is that nothing good can come from war and a massacre. This theme is expressed in the story when Billy Pilgrim says “Birds were talking. One bird said to Billy Pilgrim ’Poo-tee-weet?’” After the bombing, the POWs had to gather the bodies for a mass grave and then all the remains were set on fire. Vonnegut and the other prisoners were only there for a few more months, until they were rescued. The lasting effect this awful war caused Vonnegut had significant affect upon his writing; on return to the U.S., he was awarded a purple heart.
In the story, Goodman Brown decides to embark on a night journey, with some kind of evil intentions. He is guided by a man who resembles his grandfather, and despite his hesitancy, proceeds to his destination. Brown is shocked to see religious figures along the way, who share the same evil intentions. He is driven to meet the end when he hears his wife Faith's voice calling out. She is his one strand of good that he struggles to hold on to; when he realizes she might be captured by evil, he fills with fear. At the end is their meeting with the devil-figure, where he calls all people to come together under evil.
Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., was written as a general statement against all wars. Vonnegut focuses on the shock and outrage over the havoc and destruction man is capable of wreaking in the name of what he labels a worthy cause, while learning to understand and accept these horrors and one's feelings about them. Through his character, Billy Pilgrim, he conveys not only these feelings and emotions, but also the message that we must exercise our free will to alter the unfortunate happenings that might occur in our lives.
During Goodman Brown’s journey, he recognized Goody Cloyse, his catechism teacher, the preacher, and Deacon Gookin is going to the devil’s meeting. However, after seeing his church members at the devil’s meeting, Goodman says, “My Faith is gone! and There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come devil! for to thee is this world given” (Hawthorne 27). “But, where is Faith?”, asked Goodman Brown (Hawthorne 29). As hope came into his heart, he trembled when he found the pink ribbon of his wife, Faith, in the forest. At that moment, Goodman Brown lost his faith in his family and church members. Goodman becomes unforgiving of others and believes only evil can be created from evil and there is nothing that anyone can do to change it. Here, Hawthorne demonstrates that a naive faith in our family, friends, and church member’s righteousness could lead to distrust. While, “Young Goodman Brown” lives a long life with Faith, he never loses his meanness toward humanity and the evil in the world, “for his dying hour was gloom” (Hawthorne
As Brown talks with this man, Hawthorne offers clues to who he truly is. Though Young Goodman Brown acts as if he knows the man, he or Hawthorne never says the man's name. Hawthorne then describes a staff the man carries with him. It resembles "a great black snake" or "living serpent." The serpent being a popular image of Satan. Hawthorne later refers to the man as " the fiend" and no longer as "friend." Whether his resemblance to Brown is an illusion or not, he either represents the evil within Brown, or he represents the Devil, the evil within us all.
The main characters in Hawthorne's story "Young Goodman Brown" are Goodman Brown, his wife Faith and the stranger who accompanies Goodman Brown in the forest. At the beginning of the story Brown is bidding his wife, Faith farewell at their front door. Taking a lonely route into the forest, he meets an older man who bears a fatherly resemblance to both Brown and the Devil. Later that night Brown discovers to his amazement, that many exemplary villagers are on the same path including, Goody Cloyse, a pious old woman who once taught him his catechism, but who readily shows that she certainly knew the Devil and practiced witchcraft. With Brown still confident that he could turn back, his older companion departs, leaving behind his curiously snakelike staff and fully expecting that Brown would follow.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”, Goodman Brown struggles with staying pure and not giving in to the devil. Hawthorne utilizes allegory and ambiguity to leave unanswered questions for the reader.
Brown to continue down the path with him, but Goodman Brown declares that he kept his meeting with the devil and no longer wishes to continue on. He says, “ ‘My father never went into the woods on such an errand, nor his father before him. We have been a race of honest men and good Christians’ ” (312). The devil is quick to point out,
After serving in World War Two, Kurt Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse-Five about his experiences through Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist in the novel. Slaughterhouse-Five is a dark novel about war and death. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a mental disease that inflicts people who endured a traumatic event. Some of the common symptoms include flashbacks and creating alternate worlds which Billy Pilgrim experienced various times throughout Slaughterhouse-Five. Billy Pilgrim believes he has become “unstuck in time” (Vonnegut 29) and travels to different moments throughout his life. Pilgrim is never in one event for long and his flashbacks are triggered by almost everything he does. While his “time-traveling” is sporadic and never to a relevant time, all of Billy Pilgrims flashbacks are connected through actions done in each of the visions. Perhaps the most important flashback occurred at ...
Young Goodman Brown is a newlywed Puritan who leaves his wife, Faith on what he terms “an errand,” which the reader later learns to be a meeting with the devil. Brown believes he can face and resist the devil. Initially, his wife, Faith, begs him to stay, and Brown patronizingly soothes her only to discover her as one of the devil’s converts. Ultimately, Brown holds Faith most culpable for his disillusion with the supposed elect of his community.
...the hero; she alone faces the devil figure and turns towards the path of the righteous. Her coming of age story in "Faust" from and innocent girl to a world ravaged woman and ultimately to her salvation from society and evil her character holds power not usually seen in pre-modern literature. To give her the full power of the novel would be to re-write the story with a female Faustian character as the heroine like Louisa May Alcott did in 1877 entitled "A Modern Mephistopheles".This novel can easily be seen as a feminist work, showing the power of the overlooked woman. As Gretchen's life is drastically altered by a mysteriously androgynous devil figure, the strength Margaret shows in the end after he has broken all of her own moral codes and unknowingly served the devil shows her to be a great feminine character and a step forward for the literature of the period.
Billy Pilgrim, one of Vonnegut’s main characters, has severe pain and suffers from a bombing in Dresden. The bombing alters his state of mind and the Vonnegut uses this tragedy to let the readers see what it’s like to experience an event that is detrimental to the physical and mental state of your body. He then gets the ability to go back and forth in time to his background of the planet which has given him a new way of seeing time. Billy’s
He also glares at his wife during family prayer time rather than joining her joyfully in this spiritual act. Although he has not forsaken her completely, he trusts absolutely only in himself. He turns away from townspeople he once trusted, and above all his wife, Faith. He no longer seeks out and runs to Faith as he once did. Goodman turns more and more to himself, even unto death, “for his dying hour was gloom” (Hawthorne).
Unfortunately, Goodman Brown truly has lost his faith. Though his wife appears unchanged and wishes to welcome him with open, loving arms Brown rejects her. The reader is left slightly confused as to why, but perhaps Brown has given up hope that good can win over the enormous amount of sin or evil out there. He is unable to accept Faith now that he is forced to see her in her unclean or imperfect state. Brown can no longer see the good for the evil surrounding him, and has lost all hope. Although Brown tried to resist the devil, in the end he failed in his journey of exploring evil and returning to the side of good.