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Everyone Sins In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

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Everyone Sins
In the story “Young Goodman Brown”, Goodman Brown goes on a faith changing path. Goodman Brown is a Puritan with certain views about religion, human nature, and sin. Brown goes in to the woods to meet with the devil, but he tells everyone that he is on an errand. He makes the journey at night and sunset represents the line between good and evil. Young Goodman Brown’s journey shows the readers how the pink ribbon, the staff, and the forest relates to the Puritans beliefs and of how they are hypocrites.
The first symbol is the pin ribbon that Faith wears. The pink ribbon is a glowing symbol which shows that Faith has a little good and bad in her. It takes red and white to make pink. Red symbolizes the devil and evil while white represents purity and innocence. Goodman Brown sees Faith as innocent and childlike, but she had sinned “in spite of her pink ribbons” (Hawthorne 1). From her outward appearance, Faith is the most innocent sinless person. On the inside she has some hidden sins. This is opposite of what Puritans believe. They thought if one was good and innocent in appearance then their inside was the same. Faith shows that even the nice people have sin. (Hawthorne 1)
The next vivid symbol is the devil’s staff. The staff shows that loss of innocence to …show more content…

It shows that Young Goodman Brown is going into a place “dreary and darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest”. (Hawthorne 1) The Puritans believed that the devil lived in the woods, because Indians live in the forest so Puritans would not enter the woods. Young Goodman Brown is journeying into sin and darkness; a place Puritans normally wouldn’t go. He is even proud to say that his relatives had not been in the wood, but the woods can be seen as the dark side of a person. Young Goodman Brown finds out that the family he had looked up to had done some evil things in these exact woods. Once again proving that appearance is not what is on the

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Web. 2 May. 2012. The research of “Young Goodman Brown,” explains the various images found in Young Goodman Brown. Some of them clarifies the author criticisms are the Salem Village, the pink ribbons on Faith’s hat, the fellow traveler, the staff, and using of the term “faith”, and the forest.

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When one thinks of the color pink, our minds are usually drawn to innocence or purity. In Young Goodman Brown, Faith’s pink ribbons are mentioned on various occasions. “Faith thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap” (P. 1, paragraph 2, Young Goodman Brown) This leads us to associate her character with youthfulness and happiness. When Goodman Brown sees

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Goodman’s journey in the woods is symbolic of our journey through life, where each individual loses his innocence gradually, as a result of exposure to the sins of humankind. Young Goodman Brown left home one evening, to take a walk in the devil’s territory, and discovered that sin exists in every human heart. When he woke up from this evil dream, he is changed. He felt “there is no good on earth; and sin is but a name” (392).

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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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This talk of devilish acts from people known to Goodman Brown as holier than all causes Goodman Brown great pain and confusion even to the point where he was “ready to sink down on the ground, faint and overburdened” from what he had just witnessed (5). In the short time from when Goodman Brown enters the forest, sees Goody Cloyse, and sees the minister and the deacon, his entire life and upbringing is

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Living Somewhere in Between Good and evil are present within every person one will encounter in his/her life. Is it better for to just solely focus on the good and live life blissfully ignorant, or to focus on just the bad and live life aware and depressed? Is it easier to focus on the bad in others and ignore its presence in oneself? Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays both of these situations in his stories “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Minister’s Black Veil,” showing the reader that the world is not simply black and white. There is a grey, blended area for one to live in that allows him/her to live peaceful but not ignorant.

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His journey into the woods signifies a journey into the forces of evil which can be described as the woods themselves. Since the story begins and ends in Salem it is a symbol of the starting point as well as and the endpoint of his life as he visits the woods. Salem is as said in the story a safe haven and the woods are filled with sin. Puritans believed the woods to be the habitat of the devil. The woods in "Young Goodman Brown" are the symbol of the devil's habitat and are filled with evil and

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In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “Young Goodman Brown”, the author uses themes of suspense and mystery to keep readers entertained. Throughout the story from beginning to end, Hawthorne uses many forms of symbolism that make the story what it is. The most important of all symbols is his dying faith. The author makes it very clear that faith should be of all importance to any man or women, without faith your outlook on the world will be turned around and full of skepticism and doubt. Goodman Brown’s faith began to be compromised and destroyed the second he stepped foot into the woods.

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Sin is inevitable. Every person sins, one way or another. Sinning is impossible to avoid even with “practice.” “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne shows readers that. Goodman Brown wants to believe he is a good man, and perhaps he is; but he is tempted by sin all the same.

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They were my good friends, both; and many pleasant walks have we had along this path, and returned merrily after midnight. I would fain be friends with you, for their sake." (p-279). These lines revealed historical, mythical and puritan backgrounds as Goodman’s ancestors were involved in devilish activities like setting fire to an Indian village and his grandfather who once lashed the Quaker woman in the street of Salem; this old man was the friend of Brown’s ancestors. Brown resultantly rejected this so called story about his forefather’s filthy and heinous activities at Salem and he stated that his ancestors were pious and good people and further he stated that his father

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Young Goodman Brown is a short story published in 1835 written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Symbolism can be seen throughout Young Goodman Brown in many different forms. The story itself is even considered an allegory, when practically everything is a symbol in itself. Hawthorne thought that the 'fancy free’ fiction style of most writers of the time was incorrect and illogical and wanted to write something different, like many other gothic writers. Symbolism is when something represents something else without it being directly announced.

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