This makes him question "heaven above him" (Hawthorne 594). While he does decide to take a stand against what he sees in the forest, it is too late because what he has seen has already changed him. Faith's pink ribbon flickering is important because it represents his wife and his faith, which he has seemingly lost in one night. We read that that are simply "gone" (595). Goodman is radically transformed by what he believes took place in the forest and while it was something he thought he could handle and something he thought he wanted to know, he was deadly wrong but there was not way for him to go back and reverse events. Like Louise, he is changed but not in a good way. Symbolism is significant to each story as well. In "The Story of an Hour," the house and the window are important to Louise's development because they symbolize the prison and her freedom, respectively. The house is where she has been locked away for most of her life and the widow allows her to see what awaits her. In "Young Goodman Brown," Faith becomes a symbol of the goodness in man while Goodman's journey symbolizes the dark areas of the human soul. In addition, the devil is a symbol that also represents the dark side of humanity. These symbols destroy Goodman's faith. To think of his wife with the devil is too much for him...
They failed to consider other options. Louise could only see her future without her husband and when she realized that he was not dead, she was devastated. Goodman let curiosity get the best of him and it ruined the things that were the most important to him. Both characters were resigned to one outcome and they did not allow room for any variation from that. They forgot to consider the unintended consequences that life usually throws into the mix. Their lives would have been better had they left a little room for change but as it was, Louise wanted her husband dead and Goodman had to know what was in the forest. They were their own victims because they could not see beyond their curiosity and desire.
As he becomes frustrated by onlookers' questions, he shakes the bars of the cage like some wild animal. The artist's cage is literal and figurative in this case. He is confined to his life of suffering and his is a prisoner of it. His psychological cage is just like his physical one. He willingly accepts both. He was never appreciated and this led to even more dissatisfaction. The artist
Music becomes the symbol that changes the brothers. To emphasize the importance of the power of music, Baldwin's narrator cannot grasp what Sonny is speaking about until he sees him play. It is only when he experiences the sound does he finally "get it." Music bridges the chasm that has existed between these brothers for so long and it literally saves their relationship from further darkness and turmoil. Sonny's
Story Of an Hour Kate Chopin was an American writer whose deeply feminist views often influenced her writing. In "The Story of an Hour," Chopin (1894) explores Mrs. Mallard's reaction to the news of her husband's death and the emotional rollercoaster that she experiences during the brief hour after she hears her husband has died and before she learns her husband is actually still alive. Chopin's (1894) "The Story of an
Symbolism in the Hairy Ape The Hairy Ape is an expressionist play by Eugene O'Neill and was produced and published in 1922. It is a symbolic work that deals with the themes of social alienation and search for identity in the presence of technological progress (Cardullo 258). The play speaks to the industrialization that was taking place during that era. In an expressionistic play, the number of characters is kept minimal
"The drowned face always staring," and "the drowned face sleeps with open eyes" are lines in Rich's poem that correspond with the symbol of drowning as death in Crane's "The Open Boat." The symbol of drowning is that of respect for nature and especially for the power of the ocean over human life. Darkness is another symbol shared in common by these two works of literature. Although Rich's poem has
In a metaphorical way, this image is transposed on the image of the woman "showing her teeth." She responds with the symbolic implications that she too is living in a sate of fear and resentment. The reality that Elisa aspires to is again conveyed through the imagery and symbolic of a longing for a better existence. This can be seen when she whispers, "That's a bright direction. There's a glowing
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