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Deception In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

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Has your mind ever played tricks on you? In the story “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the main character, Goodman Brown, seems to experience just that. He’s travelling through the forest with another man who can only be described as the devil himself, and at the end of the story the reader is left to wonder if anything that took place even truly happened. Hawthorne uses many literary devices to convey that deception comes in many shapes and forms, the worst of which can be your own mind.
Sometimes, this deception can alter your perception of the past. This is seen in this quote from the story:
“He had cast up his eyes in astonishment, and, looking down again, beheld neither Goody Cloyse nor the serpentine staff, but his fellow …show more content…

Goody Cloyse, the woman who taught him his catechism – the very principles of his religion, his faith if you will – is apparently well-acquainted with the man Brown is travelling with, the devil. At this point, Brown becomes aware that what he knows of his past may be incorrect, as someone who taught him what he knows – what he believes – is not quite who he believes her to be. It shows that he was deceived as a child – or he is being deceived now, believing what the devil wants him to believe.
Occasionally, deception can alter how you see the environment in which you are placed, such as in the following excerpt from the story:
“Young Goodman Brown caught hold of a tree for support, being ready to sink down on the ground, faint and overburdened with the heavy sickness of his heart. He looked up to the sky, doubting whether there really was a heaven above him. Yet there was the blue arch, and the stars brightening in it.” In the above quote, Brown is recovering from seeing holy men – the minister and deacon of his town’s church – out so far in the dark forest, which is considered to be the devil’s realm. He’s questioning what he knows to be true, even the very existence of the sky and stars above him, bright lights illuminating the heavens. The men he knows to be good and holy have deceived him as long as he has known them… or perhaps he’s simply reading too much into their presence there in the

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“Young Goodman Brown.” : An Annotated Bibliography “Young Goodman Brown” is a story about a man who challenges his faith in himself and in the community in which he resides. Gregory, Leslie. " The Text of Nathaniel Hawthorne 's "Young Goodman Brown". " American Literature Research and Analysis.

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He adds on to his argument by using the logical argument that humanity is evil by nature. In conclusion, Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays the devil as capable of emotion to show how convincing the arguments and influence can have the most pious people of the

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In the middle of Brown’s journey, after he had met the traveler, the traveler said “I helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through the streets of Salem” (Young Goodman Brown 662), which completely and easily overturned Brown’s good impressions toward his family. Also, the traveler added “The selectmen, of divers’ towns, make me their chairman; and a majority of the Great and General Court are firm supporters of my interest. The governor and I, too.” (Young Goodman Brown 662) However, there was no the reason to make Brown believe the statements said by the traveler, this shows Brown’s immaturity, he should not easily trust the stranger he just met, Brown should at least have some level of suspicion toward the traveler’s speech.

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Hawthorne says, “Something fluttered lightly down through the air and caught on the branch of a tree” Faith’s pink ribbons symbolize purity. In the beginning of the story was Faith had her ribbons she was pure but at the end of the story when Young Goodman Brown saw Faith’s pink ribbon come down from the sky it represents how she succumed to evil and Hawthorne lost both his faith and his wife Faith. The third example of how Hawthorne uses symbolism to show the theme good versus evil in the story “Young Goodman Brown” is when the devil is telling Brown and Faith that they will have a new perspective of life, a life where everyone sins. In the beginning of the story Young Goodman Brown saw his family as godly and he saw Faith as pure but the devil shows him that his views are naive and the devil gives him the capability to see the dark side of everything and everyone.

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To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone’s sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating” (McCarthy). In a way, this relates to how a character in Much Ado About Nothing could deceive another person in hopes that they wouldn’t find out. People now mask their identity using social media, which is the same thing as in the novel except, they did not have a screen in front of their faces. Deception is something real which still continues today and was present in the

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During his journey of sin, Young Goodman Brown and the devil come upon Goody Cloyse, Young Goodman Brown's catechism teacher, and, still believing that she is a “pious and exemplary dame” Goodman Brown tries to stay away from the woman by pleading with the devil “I shall take a cut through the woods… being a stranger to you, she might ask whom I was consorting with” (3). Because of Young Goodman Brown’s beliefs of her innocence, it is even more jolting to him when she “knows her old friend,” the devil, and speaks about stolen broomsticks, recipes including “the juice of smallage and cinquefoil and wolf’s-bane,” and even the same devilish meeting that Young Goodman Brown and his accomplice are to attend (3). With signs that all point to sin and witchcraft, Young Goodman Brown’s shock in saying “That old woman taught me my catechism” had “a world of meaning” as he cannot possibly believe that a woman known to be so holy and righteous in the community could be so evil within. As Goodman Brown moves past the shock of Goody Cloyse’s actions, he is exposed to the sins of the holiest members of their Puritan community, the minister and Deacon Gookin. While Goodman Brown shamefully “[conceals] himself within the verge of the forest… he recognized the voices of the minister and Deacon Gookin” who speak of the same evil “meeting” as Goody Cloyse and even remark that “several of the Indian powwows” will even be present (4,5).

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Although he blames his evil and hypocrisy on others he leaves his faith first. He develops this thought in the allegory and in many symbols, particularly the sunset, the walking stick, and the path. When Goodman Brown say, "Of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee," he is saying in other words that he needs to be away from his wife Faith that night. “of all nights in the yea”' means possibly that he is home most other nights and that tonight is significant because he has something important to do away from

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The Twentieth-century philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre had the right idea when he stated that "ownership extends beyond objects to include intangible things as well"; because the foundation of one 's self-identity is also a bridge between the intangible things that one can own and how one perceives those items. When traveling through that journey in life where you are trying to figure out who you are and what that entitles, one must likely thinks and ponders upon their perception of intangible items like faith, love, hope, fear to fully understand themselves. Goodman Brown in the story "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne touched upon the building of ones identity based upon the ideals/morals they believed in when it came to the item of faith. He understood that he was a child of god who had committed sins and so he thought that maybe he deserved to be comrades with the devil and accept the concept of evil into his life. However by the end of the story, Goodman Brown believed in his identity and he knew that he believed in God and had faith so he denied the Devil.

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Sin will evade or persuade a person into allowing evil in men's and women's hearts, using honeyed words and trusted people against that person. Brown had possibly chosen to speak with the devil for something in return, but he starts to have second thoughts upon entering the forest. He never told Faith of his journey, only telling her that he must go despite her warnings and pleas. It's seen clearly here: “So they parted; and the young man pursued his way, until, being about to turn the corner by the meeting-house, he looked back and saw the head of Faith still peeping after him, with a melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons.” (1) Brown had just told his wife, Faith, that he was leaving for a journey in the night and would be back the next day.

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Goodman Brown enters the forest knowing of such evil, he states in the story “what if the devil himself should be at my very elbow” (Hawthorne 322). Goodman Brown sees the minister and Deacon Gookin as well as many other townspeople making their way into the dark forest towards the ceremony. At this time, Nathaniel Hawthorne is displaying that many people of all ranks in religious and governmental society are sinners despite their external appearance. He holds on to the thoughts that as long as Faith remains holy, he shall find it in himself to resist the temptations of evil, but when he sees the pink ribbons from Faith’s cap his Christian faith is weakened. Hawthorne is using Goodman Brown’s wife, Faith, as a symbol of his own when he yells out “my faith is gone!”

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Young Goodman Brown In the short story, “Young Goodman Brown,” by author Nathaniel Hawthorne, A young man named Goodman Brown was a man with an innocent heart believing that everyone around him is virtuous. Although he began to see that the once thought to be virtuous people followed the devil, he believe that the devil took control of their minds instead of them doing so of their own free will. Nonetheless, he too slowly grew corrupt by the devil as he battles to keep his faith.

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1 In Hawthorne 's essay “Young Goodman Brown”, does it matter whether or not the protagonist, Goodman Brown, dreamt the events in the story? The idea and drive behind religious faith and belief is a concept consistently explored in Young Goodman Brown (YGB). The story explores Brown 's journey in a single night which inexplicably ends with a tarnished perspective on religious faith as portrayed by his fellow villagers. Brown himself grows to be disillusioned on faith but the events leading up to this shift however, is ambiguous at best, with the debate mostly centred towards the notion that Brown merely dreamt the events, resulting in an unfair and biased outcome in terms of his sentiment towards the villagers and his own belief.

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Brown reflect this when returning home from the forest and see Faith in which his reaction was “ But Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without greeting” (70). He displays this further by “Often, awaking suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith, and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled, and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away.” (72) because his wife caused him to his loss of faith which he displays by not praying publicly or privately showing faith in

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The devil in the story is the subconscious and innate desires of humanity because he reveals that, “Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race” (Hawthorne 8). Once a person comes to the realization of his or her own personal

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The story of Young Goodman Brown is the story of a tale about the main character becoming aware of the hypocrisy of his faith as a Puritan. Through his travels in the woods at night, he unveils the truths, or what he believes as truths, about his wife Faith, neighbors, and fellow Christians. By the end, Brown loses all trust in his Faith, both literally and spiritually, and refuses to see any good in the world. The beginning scene where Goodman Brown meets the old man has the most significance in the story’s resolution. This is where his mistrust starts to form and where he experiences his first temptations to sin.

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