¶ … Goodman Brown of Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" and Elisa Allen of Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums" struggle silently as they question major life choices. Elisa comes to terms with her longing for freedom, symbolized in John Steinbeck's short story by the pot-mender who passes through town. Her work consists of planting roots and tending to flowers: tasks that require stability, commitment and what Elisa refers to as planting hands. Her weeping at the end of the story shows that Elisa longs for a less fettered life, almost wishing she had not rooted herself in one place. Yet the joy she feels when working with the chrysanthemums shows that Elisa's choice is ultimately a sound one: the idea of living nomadically may be more appealing than the act itelf.
Goodman Brown's internal struggle is between Puritanical ideals and an undefined, nebulous wickedness symbolized in Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story by the devil in the woods. Like Elisa Allen, Brown remains committed to social conventions like marriage and yet on some level feels a primordial pull toward an animalistic freedom. Both Elisa Allen and Goodman Brown suggest that sexual tension might be at the root of their conflict.
Allen arguably deals with her pain more constructively than Brown does. Brown becomes bitter as a result of the conflict he perceives in his heart. Moreover, Brown fails to ground himself in reality. Questioning whether or not the forest vision was real, Brown neglects to contemplate its value even as a dream. Learning that he does have longings to break free from the social conventions tying him down to the rigid and conformist Puritan society would have helped Brown come to terms with the Faith he does genuinely seek. Elisa cries but deep down knows that a simple dinner out with her husband is as much freedom as she can have while still savoring the joy of planting seeds.
HAWTHORNE'S BIRTHMARK AND YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN Hawthorne was born 1804 and brought up in Salem, Massachusetts to a Puritan family. When Hawthorne was four, his father died. After this incident he was mostly in the female company of his two sisters, an aunt and his retiring mother who was not close to her offspring. Hawthorne was known as a reserved personality but during four years at college he established close friendships
Young Goodman Brown Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" is a strange and unsettling story of a young man who travels through a wood overnight and allows his experience to change him forever. There are many themes in this short story, including the age-old theme of good and evil, but a close reading of the work can make the reader thing Brown's journey is a symbolic acting out of his own sinful
Therefore in the remarkably persistent debate over whether Young Goodman Brown lost faith in human redemption or not, which critics have apparently quarreled over for a century and a half now, this reading takes the side that Brown did in fact retain some core belief that human redemption was possible, or else he would not have been alienated, tried to save the girl or had a family. The resulting message
As soon as that objective was achieved the whole theatrics was withdrawn. On the contrary it could well be nothing but his subconscious that expressed his own desire to see the world according to that perspective in which all the nice people embracing high standards of morality are all but faux. But it could be safe to assume that the whole episode in the forest was the figment of
) Doubts enter Brown's mind on page 15, as he looks "up at the sky" (which of course is pitch black in the deep forest at night) and doubts whether there is a heaven. But he cries out that he will "stand firm" - so readers know he still hopes to be strong and resist what is happening to him. But this night is not about resistance: "The cry of grief,
Young Goodman Brown In the story "Young Goodman Brown," much of the story is centered on Goodman Brown and his struggle to use his faith to suppress his evil impulses and his internal doubts. This struggle is undoubtedly a representation of some of the same struggles that Nathaniel Hawthorne must have faced within his own life in which he embraced the Puritan way of life and its beliefs. Given Hawthorne's background
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