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Good And Evil In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

687 Words3 Pages

In the religion of Christianity, Christians believe that mankind are born sinners and can seek refuge from sin by seeking forgiveness with faith to god. In the founding text of the religion, the Holy Bible, the opening chapter of Genesis tells a story about the first man and woman created by god falling into sin due to their human nature. Although created by god and in his image, a person has the independent choice to disobey god. In Christianity, if a person chooses to live a sinful life and elude from the conformation of their faith, the Bible states they will be bound in chains of sin and evil for eternity after death. The natural sinful nature of mankind is symbolized and through Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” among a dream of a Puritan man and his conflicts with the Christian faith. Hawthorn portrays Goodman as an example of the natural sinful tendencies of man by revealing just how effortlessly a young puritan can be tempted and influenced by a stranger. …show more content…

At this point the Devil throws Goodman Brown his snake-like staff. Hawthorne uses the staff as a strong literary device to make the Devil or antagonist of the story of the text become more obvious to the reader. This particular exchange of the staff to Goodman Brown represented the transference of evil from the Devil to him (Magee). The staff ironically "bore the likeness of a great black snake". The staff is symbolic of the presence of evil in the rendezvous between Goodman Brown and the Devil. The staff represents the serpent in the Bible story of Adam and Eve were just as in the bible the appearance of a snake lead to destruction (Magee). One example of the symbolic destruction of the snake like staff was when it led Goodman Brown to the Devil’s ceremony, which ironically destroyed his faith in

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