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Critical commentary on young goodman brown
Critical commentary on young goodman brown
Young goodman brown author point of view
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The Dark Views of Dexter Morgan and Young Goodman Brown The term “dark” instantaneously creates the image of undesirable. Darkness lives in everyone whether it is in the body consciously or unconsciously. When a person experiences a catastrophic event, their view on life precipitously changes. Nathanial Hawthorne’s short story Young Goodman Brown is about a young innocent man who wished his wife, Faith, a farewell and was later encountered in a supernatural phenomenon, which took his purity away and changed his views on the people he once knew. Dexter Morgan was also a young innocent boy who lost his clear conscious when he witnessed his mother’s death at the age of three. Dexter and Young Goodman Brown are divergent, but the main characters …show more content…
Though Young Goodman Brown saw evil in everyone including himself, he did not commit violent actions. Dexter on the other hand, found darkness in himself, which urged him to kill. Instead of putting a stop to these urges, he follows a code that his father taught him. His codes are equivalent to Young Goodman Brown’s religious belief. At one point, they both questioned their belief. Dexter asked himself, “Am I a good person doing ‘bad’ things?” (Dexter, 2010). Both Dexter and Young Goodman Brown are wise people, but if Dexter had just understood that his darkness is not what is controlling his urges, he would not have killed his own brother. Killing his brother was what triggered his delusional and uncontrollable urges that made him lost control of his …show more content…
Young Goodman Brown was deeply in love with his wife, Faith, before he left. Once he encountered the event, he no longer saw Faith the same way he did before. “But Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting” (Hawthorne, 628). Usually when you love someone, you can always look past his or her flaws. Young Goodman Brown’s darkness took over his mind and made him overlook his own family. Dexter, on the other hand, would do anything to not let his darkness interfere with the love for his family. “I destroy everyone I love. But I can 't that happen to Hannah, to Harrison. I have to protect them from me” (Dexter, 2013). If anything, once he realized the darkness in him, he protects his family from his himself by hiding his “dark
“Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and “A White Heron” by Sarah Orne Jewett share many similarities. One of these similarities includes Young Goodman Brown and Sylvia’s innocence. Upon entering the woods, they meet a stranger who tries to steal their innocence away. Although these strangers are different people, they offer Young Goodman Brown and Sylvia alluring things, which come at a cost. The price is their innocence. There are many parallels in these two stories, but ultimately Sylvia and Young Goodman Brown make different choices with similar outcomes when it comes to their innocence. Because these two stories are very similar, the way that I read “A White Heron” was directly affected by previously reading “Young Goodman Brown.” Within these two stories, the main characters have tangible items which symbolize their innocence - they are both tempted to give them up at a price - and finally the interpretation of these stories is affected by intertextuality.
Hawthorne and Poe showcase a theme of darkness but differ in their approach to the setting. In Young Goodman Brown, the story primarily
In “The Minister’s Black Veil”, Mr. Hooper’s wife begs him to take off the veil but to no avail. The secret sins symbolized by the black veil, he wears will not go away on earth so in turn he refuses to take it off. As a result, his wife leaves him. In “Young Goodman Brown”, Goodman Brown leaves his wife, Faith, at night. Goodman Brown is leaving because he wants to commit an evil deed in the night. In the gloomy and evil night, Faith describes herself as “A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts that she’s afeard of herself sometimes” (36). His wife is a symbol of Goodman Brown’s faith which waivers because of his secret sin. Also pertaining to Faith, Goodman Brown discovers his wife was worshipping the devil. Their relationship suffers as a result. The author describes,“Often walking suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith”(45). Goodman Brown is not able to see his wife in the same light because he is afraid of her secret sin. He ends up dying as an alone and downcast
Young Goodman Brown was a man who was naïve to the world around him. Ever since he was a child, he had always practiced a very Godly life. Not only does he believe that everyone around him follows the same path, but he also believes that it is the only path. This naivety and innocence was taken from him by the Devil, who opened his eyes to the world of evil around him. After the pagan ceremony, which Brown attends, the Devil even states “Now are ye undeceived! Evil is the nature of mankind” (Hawthorne 9). By saying this, Hawthorne is trying to say that it is better to know the whole truth than to live a lie. By not knowing the truth about evil existing in Salem village, Brown has essentially been living a life that is not complete or accurate. This perfect and fair world that was found in the Bible is not the real world that surrounds him. When his innocence is stolen from him so abruptly, he begins to lose both his faith and stability in the world.
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.
In "Young Goodman Brown," Nathaniel Hawthorne, through the use of deceptive imagery, creates a sense of uncertainty that illuminates the theme of man's inability to operate within a framework of moral absolutism. Within every man there is an innate difference between good and evil and Hawthorne's deliberate use of ambiguity mirrors this complexity of human nature. Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown, is misled by believing in the perfectibility of humanity and in the existence of moral absolutes. According to Nancy Bunge, Hawthorne naturally centers his story upon a Puritan protagonist to convey the "self-righteous" that he regards as the "antithesis of wisdom"(4). Consequently, Young Goodman Brown is unable to accept the indefinable vision of betrayal and evil that he encounters in the forest. The uncertainty of this vision, enhanced by Hawthorne's deliberate, yet effective, use of ambiguity, is also seen in the character of Faith, the shadows and darkness of the forest, and the undetectable boundaries that separate nightmarish dreams from reality.
When reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” or Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener,” the audience might notice how they are stories of men who become detached from the society after a notable change in how they act towards the world. However, while Bartleby’s disconnection stems from work-related changes, Young Goodman Brown’s disconnection is caused by a “spiritual” experience. I want to focus on how many things these characters have in common, to show what may have caused their change of view in the societies around them.
Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes symbolism throughout his short story Young Goodman Brown to impact and clarify the theme of good people sometimes doing bad things. Hawthorne uses a variety of light and dark imagery, names, and people to illustrate irony and different translations. Young Goodman Brown is a story about a man who comes to terms with the reality that people are imperfect and flawed and then dies a bitter death from the enlightenment of his journey through the woods. Images of darkness, symbolic representations of names and people and the journey through the woods all attribute to Hawthorne's theme of good people sometimes doing bad things.
First, we will start with Goodman Brown. He is the main character in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story titled “Young Goodman Brown”. “Hawthorne could not escape the influence of Puritan society” (McCabe). I think that Hawthorne’s own past is and complications are reveled in his story about Goodman Brown. I believe that Goodman Brown has had a rough past and is trying to reach beyond his past in order to reach heaven. Goodman has some major problems with his wife, Faith, and everyone else in his community. I think that he is seeing everyone as perfect people, but he is having impure thoughts about himself and his past. In order to deal with these problems within himself, he is making up that everyone has this awful bad side. When he goes into the forest, he believes he is talking to the devil with looks much like his grandfather. The devil is feeding him bad thoughts about everyone he knows, even his own father and his wife Faith. Next, I believe that Goodman Brown has had a rough past and in order for him to overcome this within himself he must search for attention. This attention may not be needed from his wife or community members, I believe it is needed from him. He is feeling overwhelmed with obligations from his wife and peers that he has no time to decide whether this type of life is right for him. So, in search for the answer to his questions about life, he turns to the devil and takes his...
At the beginning of his journey, Goodman Brown’s will and pride were both embedded in the belief that he was a pious man. Goodman’s pride in piety evidently fails him, as he discovers that his faith was based on the principles of individuals who had sworn allegiance to the devil. This deplorable truth destroyed his conviction, and in this sense the devil prevailed against Goodman Brown.
In the story Sonny's Blues the author, James Baldwin, uses the image of darkness quite frequently. He uses it first when the older brother (main character) talks about his younger brother Sonny. He says that when Sonny was younger his face was bright and open. He said that he didn't want to believe that he would ever see his "brother going down, coming to nothing, all that light in his face gone out." Meaning he had gone from good (clean and innocent) to bad ( giving into drugs like so many of the other young people).
Goodman Brown’s wife, Faith, not only represents Goodman Brown’s wife but also his religious faith. This dual purpose of Faith only makes it harder for Goodman Brown to enter the forest and leave Faith behind (Haddock). On his way into the forest, Goodman Brown is unsure of his decision. To demonstrate this is when he states to himself, “What a wretch am I to leave her on such an errand! She talks of dreams, too. Methought as she spoke there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is to be done tonight. But no, no; ‘t would kill her to think it. Well, she’s a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night I’ll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven.” (Young Goodman Brown). When Goodman Brown meets up with his so called leader in the forest he says, “Faith kept me back awhile…” (Young Goodman Brown). This quote shows the reader that Goodman couldn’t decide between the devil and faith. During the journey, he experiences many moments of uncertainty and sinfulness and wants to turn back, it was at these times, Faith was more important to him than the traveler (Haddock).
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.
In 'Young Goodman Brown,'; Hawthorne makes the reader believe that Goodman Brown has learned that truth about the world and how evil it really is. In the story the accounts of Goodman Brown let you believe that he has truly seen the evil in the world and knows what lurks behind everybody masks. He makes you realize that even though the person may look holy and religious that evilness is all around us and most people will never ever find out the truth. The character Young Goodman Brown written by Nathaniel Hawthorne finds many issues of evil concerning the town's people in which he lives, about himself, and the reality behind the evil.
How does one define evil? It is universally thought of as bad, negative, harmful, vicious, corrupt and wicked. In all of humanity there stands an image or figurative concept of evil, differing from each culture of the globe. Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1836—enunciated a theory of symbol in his first book Nature, that retained validity through much of the century (Dunne 107). A fundamental doctrine of many mid nineteenth century American writers was a belief in the symbolic authority of nature (Dunne 107). Nathaniel Hawthorne has intended to emphasize that no single person can endure the escape from the devil’s nature in his short story “Young Goodman Brown”. Using an abundant amount of symbolism, Hawthorne