Anne Bradstreet And Young Goodman Brown

Today, in the 21st century, people tend to strive for goals that are often not accomplishable. Humans have the desire to meet the idea of perfection. Two texts, the nineteenth century short story “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Puritan poem “Contemplations” by Anne Bradstreet, both mention the idea of humans wanting perfection. Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the story of a man who goes on a journey into the forest only to find that ll of the people he has trusted for years are now associated with the devil. Anne Bradstreet writes about walking in the woods during autumn; however, during the final line of “Contemplations 8”, Bradstreet says she feels like an idiot. Young Goodman Brown and Contemplations both combine to suggest a vision of the world in which everyone wants to be perfect and people will lie in order to get to that idea of perfection.

On his journey, Goodman sees some old friends and mentors. Later on he finds out that all of these people that he has trusted in his life have all been lying. Brown’s old catechism teacher, Goody Cloyse, was one person that stood out to him. Goodman states, “what if a wretched old woman do choose to go to the devil, when I thought she was going to Heaven!” (Hawthorne, 4). From the context of the quote it can be inferred that Goodman was very surprised to find out that Goody Cloyse was involved with the devil. Cloyse was pretending to be this great catechism teacher where in reality she was a witch. She was pretending to be someone she wasn't so she would seem more perfect and inorder to do that she had to lie to all of her