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Perception In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

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Perception. The way you interpret and see someone or something. Everything, living and nonliving, can be perceived in a different way. No two people can possibly view the same object in the exact same manner, or perspective. Events, like crimes for example, are not perceived in the exact same way by two people, and should not be heavily relied on. Perceptions often turn out faulty, and can prove to be false or in error. A person’s perception of something is formed based on a variety of situations including the person’s emotional state, beliefs and morals, and level of interest in the person or situation. Multiple examples, including real life situations and occurrences both in the short story Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne and …show more content…

Many people do not like to deal with negative things, and usually completely ignore any aspects of a person or object that are negative without even realizing it. In Young Goodman Brown, Goodman Brown perceives his wife as perfect: “Well, she’s a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night I’ll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven” (page 7). Brown perceives his wife as a perfect and completely pure figure, but he does not realize that no person or object can be perfect, and everything has a small aspect of evil and wrongdoing in it. Brown in a sense sees Faith as a celebrity. This created the vision that Faith’s life was completely perfect, and she had everything she could ever ask for, but in reality, her life was pretty far from it. Another example of this interpretation of perception is found in the poem “Richard Cory” by Edwin Arlington Robinson: “In fine, we thought that he was everything / To make us wish that we were in his place” (lines 11-12). The townsfolk from this poem also view Richard Cory as a celebrity in a sense, and ended up being completely on the other side of the spectrum where Richard’s life was concerned. These examples prove that nothing can be perfect, including one’s perception of someone or something

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When it comes to deconstructing the numerous “truths” that reside within a piece of literature, being knowledgeable of how perception varies throughout individuals can be

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In a world filled with judgement and criticism, people struggle with this on the daily. Always having an opinion about every little thing. Whether people choose to share or not that is their own perspective and everyone’s is different. A person can never have judgement for a person, until they can physically feel and see what they go through each and every day. In Harper Lee’s

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The Perspective of Freedom Have you ever thought about the concept of freedom? Freedom is a point of perspective and not a point of a state of being. This can be seen in the story comparison in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown and Phillis Wheatley’s To the University of Cambridge, in New-England.

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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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Goodman Brown loses his faith in his humanity when evil prevails itself in many forms, leaving him to speculate the behavior and beliefs of everyone encircles around him. This story also contains similar Biblical characteristics of the sinful nature in man. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbolism to define that wickedness exist in all humanity and nothing is the way it seems. The story begins with Goodman Brown and his wife named Faith bartering a goodbye kiss.

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In his essay, Visible Sanctity and Specter Evidence, Michael J. Colacurcio illustrates how Hawthorne’s work reveals how “the Calvinist doctrine of election looks very much like the traditional sin of presumption” (393). The fact that Calvinist epistemology resembles the sin of presumption indicates that the notion of absolute certainty in of itself produces uncertainty. The first generation of Puritans, and those who followed, presumed they were God’s chosen people, yet in the same vein, they assert that God’s grace is not certain. Uncertainty then leads to a search for certainty; in certainty’s absence, there arises the path to the unpardonable sin, for there is no certainty without a singular, clear meaning to everything in the world. The

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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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