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Loss Of Innocence In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

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A coming of age story is when the main character loses their innocence and makes a transition to adulthood. Young Goodman Brown is not an coming of age story but it still one where innocence is lost. Through the short text, Brown evolves from a young virtuous man to one full of spite. Even though he once was a pure young man, due to the epiphany within the forest Brown loses faith within his heritage and realizes he cannot trust the village. In the beginning of the sample text, Brown is shown as an young soft man who has a strong sense of loyalty and confidence towards his ancestors, as well as his religion. His innocence is shown before he takes his trip into the forest, he has a religious conversation with his wife telling her “Say thy prayers, dear Faith…”(Schilb, 1132) This conversation shows a safe assumption that he is an man that practices his beliefs very often and is ignorant of the evil around him. …show more content…

He was proud of his heritage, they had been strong godly men in battle or men of god who beat witches during the Salem trials. But as the Devil begins to explain that the men in his family where murders and not actually crusaders, as witches were never real and was only an excuse to beat women, meaning they are not as great as the village believes they are. The Devil also sheds light upon secrets within the community such as the church deacons, who often drink “The deacons of many a church have drunk the communion wine with me” (Hawthorne, 2) Within the Bible it states “Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler;whoever is led astray by them is not wise” (New International Version, Proverbs 20:1) meaning that those who drink excessively is foolish. The Devil is stating in the previous quote that members of the church often indulgently partake in alcohol which is indeed a sin. Thus the Devil continues to point out flaws within Brown’s heritage causing him dishonor towards

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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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In the choir of the forest ceremony, Brown was going to stand to G-d, but then spots Faith’s ribbon. He feels powerless and gives his innocence

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Reverend Brown was a very religious man who takes his job too seriously and extreme. Verses like Ephesians 4: 31-32, which insist that people be more forgiving, were not emphasised when the Reverend was preaching to the town. The townsfolk were very religious, so the Reverend easily persuaded them to

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(pg. 453)” Young Goodman Brown is a man living in the puritan era who has a wife and family, and is deep in his Christian faith. Young Goodman Brown lived in a town that is all connected to through the local church. Early in the story Young Goodman brown would set out to meet a person who would later be labeled as the devil by one of the locals. Young Goodman brown would have a vision of everyone in his community that would show him their wicked sins.

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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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The man was talking about helping his father and grandfather kill innocent people. Overall the questions that I have, concerning these ideas, are why did the man therefore lie to Brown? Was it to gain his trust? Moreover, why did the family kill

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In his short story “Young Goodman Brown” Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbolism and imagery to show the concept of good versus evil. Symbolism is essential to literature because it helps create meaning and emotion in a story. Imagery is crucial to literature because it helps create a vivid experience for the reader. Hawthorne uses both to draw the reader in.

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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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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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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.

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“Young Goodman Brown” is about a negative rebirth of a devout, religious man into a dark, mistrustful man. Young Goodman Brown is a moral Christian man that values his faith above all else, but by the end of the story he has been reborn into an angry, sad husk of the man he was. He can no longer practice his faith or attend church after what he experienced in the woods. He is forever changed because “he cannot remove the doubt of universal evil from his mind.” (Walsh, Thomas F., Jr.) “Cathedral” is about the positive rebirth of a narrow-minded man into one that is glad for change and has his eyes opened.

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Representation of nature and economy in the novel ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California in 1920, his upbringing in a fertile agriculture valley (25 miles away from pacific coast served as setting for some of his best fiction. The Journals of Grapes of Wrath is said to be his later work published (1989). At the beginning of the chapter one narrator gives a picture of Oklahoma as the red country on one part and on other gray referring red to the western part of the country which has very red soil due to its high iron content and gray derived from the green gray sediment which is on northeast Oklahoma due to verdigris River. Narrator familiarizes the reader at the beginning with Oklahoma country as; in the last part of May, the sky grew pale and clouds were dissipated, weeds grew darkness, the surface of the earth crusted, a thin hard crust and the sky became pale, so the earth turned pale, pink in the red county and white in the red country only moving dust can be found into the air and in the month of June rain dropped a little splattering and hurried to some other place, nights and days went, only an emulsion of dust and air can be seen, houses were shut tight still dust entered the houses thinly like ‘settled pollen on chair’, tables and dishes day after day the sun was ‘as red as ripe new blood’ the dust covered the earth like a blanket women and children knew that no misfortune will be two great to bear if their men were whole. The metaphors

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Author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, believed that “no man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true” (“Nathaniel Hawthorne Quotes”). He expresses this ideology in the short story “Young Goodman Brown.” Here, the main character’s faith is tested by the Devil himself. The Devil shows Goodman that even the most pious members of the community follow him when they are alone. The author alludes to the thematic idea that everyone has his or her own inner evil through the unique setting, the inner conflict expressed by the protagonist, and the irony and symbolism behind the characters’ names and attributes.

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Another key factor Nathaniel Hawthorne uses to criticize the human nature and hypocrisy of all people is the community of Salem, as a whole. At the meeting that the entirety of Salem seemed to be attending, the Devil says to the holy group, “Ye deemed them holier than yourselves, and shrank from your own sin” (38). Growing up Hawthorne feels like a sinner as he doubts his ancestors for their so called ‘holy’ actions during the Salem Witch Trials. He feels like a hypocrite himself for thinking they went against god, while he, in judging them is doing essentially the same. LIkewise, in the story Goodman Brown feels like a sinner for leaving his wife and betraying his faith only to find out that so has the rest of the town, and he is not as

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His opening phrase in this scene is, “ “Faith kept me back a while” replied a young man, with tremor in his voice” (406). Although Goodman Brown’s conversation with his wife delayed him, he was referring to his faith in Puritan beliefs. In the beginning, he is uneasy with the idea of darkness and the unknown because that is all he has learned is to stay true to God. His faith is all he has known his whole life and deviating away from that ideal lifestyle is a foreign yet tempting idea. This is evident when he says, “ “Too far!

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