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Reality In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

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In a dream, what we perceive as reality and what is a cloaked ambiguity of complicated emotions, becomes like a perfectly swirled rainbow sherbet. Therefore, the distinction is no longer an issue, and what we select to believe becomes the arbitrator, or waffle cone. If an emotional event can be manipulated and construed by how our intellect perceives reality-the conclusive processed version, then the singularity of our emotions derives from what we subconsciously desire to believe. In the case of "Young Goodman Brown", the more important question is not whether or not it was a dream- which is not important, but rather what emotional crises formulate his yearning to leave his "Faith" in the beginning, or better yet, has faith already left him?
Brown's wife, who he described as "aptly named" and "My love and my Faith," which we assume she is metaphorically his faith as well, states that she is "A lone woman … troubled with such dreams and such thoughts, that she's afeard of herself, sometimes." From this, the reader can conclude that she is afraid, not of Goodman Brown's journey, but of herself. Hawthorne also …show more content…

"Then God bless you!" said Faith, with the pink ribbons, "and may you find all well, when you come back." Oddly, she gives an indirect answer and ends her plea with "Then God bless you!". Hawthorne may have intended to give the reader the impression that Goodman Brown feels like faith or religion has not lived up to its end of the bargain, and he feels betrayed or a lack of trust in

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