Hawthorne
Author Nathaniel Hawthorne's literary works constantly reference ideas of the supernatural and the religious ideas of the Puritans who colonized the United States. Of particular interest to Hawthorne is how these two things work together in that time period. Many of Nathaniel Hawthorne's works take place in Colonial times, a good century before the author himself was born. His own ancestors were active participants in Puritan society, even serving as judges during the Salem Witch Trials. Scholars have argued that Hawthorne's work heavily features this time because of the guilt he felt over the actions of his relatives. Nathaniel Hawthorne used this historical setting to create moral points about Puritanical society and the hypocrisy of those times, as well as the continued hypocrisy of his own time period. This hypocrisy is linked back to the religious zealousness of the Puritan times where the beliefs of the church superseded all others. A man's life was entirely devoted to church and the teachings of the Bible were paramount in his life. Every action was dictated by the Bible and the word of the town preacher and the town elders was akin to the word of God. In three of his stories, "Young Goodman Brown," "Rappaccini's Daughter," and "The Minister's Black Veil" Hawthorne uses the supernatural to tell his stories about hypocrisy and the trouble that religious zealotry can have when it comes in between man and his sense of logic.
In the short story "Young Goodman Brown," written in 1854, the title character goes out into the woods to test his dedication to God and his church by going on a trek with the Devil. He literally and figuratively leaves behind his Faith as he goes on his nighttime journey. Faith is Brown's religious beliefs and his trust in God and the Bible. It is also Brown's young bride who is the embodiment of all his religious devotions and the choice he has made to become a member of the Protestant community. Brown promises that after this one night of indulging in sin, he will forever after be a devoted member of the church and an equally devoted father. "After this one night, I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to Heaven." While on his walk with the wicked traveler, Brown comes across many of the men and women he knows from the Puritan township, even the woman who taught him his catechism. The devil swears that they all have signed his book and that each one has committed an act against the church and thus they have all kept his company. All the members of the church, historical figures, even Hawthorne's ancestors exist in the shadows of the forest, reflecting the evils that have been done by mankind since the beginnings. Even his wife Faith, the embodiment of what he believed to be pure and holy, is among the group of Puritan citizens at the meeting of sinners that is taking place in the center of the woods. Hawthorne does not let the reader know for a fact if the events that Brown has recently witnessed were true or if the things that he saw in the woods were merely the result of a fevered imagination. Brown is a man who refuses to see that there is wickedness in his own self and instead he casts all the other people that he knows in the roles of sinners. What is factual in the text is that Brown awakens in the wood the next morning and is forever altered by the night before. "When the minister spoke from the pulpit, with power and fervid eloquence, and with his hand on the open Bible, of...
Young Goodman Brown: Faith -- the Wife In the Young Goodman Brown, the two important characters are the protagonist, Brown and his wife Faith. While Faith, the wife, has a small role to play yet her significance increases as we closely study her symbolic use in the story. The story revolves around a man's journey into the heart of darkness to discover the strength of his own faith. He considers himself
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
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,
Goodman's internal conflict was brought about by his realization that he was vulnerable and can easily succumb to the temptations of the devil. Being in the wilderness did not help Goodman prevent this conflict from happening within him, since the wilderness was obviously not a part of society but of nature, therefore, the wilderness only follows the laws of nature and not the laws of humanity. The wilderness acted as
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