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The Devil In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

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Growing up everyone is taught to believe one thing or another of religious based ideas. There are times throughout the teenage years and adulthood when the world seems to challenge those religious ideas. Whether it be through a differentiating opinion of a spouse or friend, or an alternative view given by someone famous or well known to society. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” written in 1835 entails a man who believes his faith in God as a Puritan has come to a test by the devil himself. Throughout this short story Hawthorne has a way of revealing specific characters who contribute to this trial. This analysis will attempt to explicate the significance of these individuals and how they interrelate throughout the story. Initially, …show more content…

The old traveler carries a serpent like staff in which the story reads “…which bore the likeness of a great black snake…”. The traveler attempts to convince Goodman Brown to keep the staff, as the Devil attempts to convince those who love God to commit wrongful deeds. It is easy to reference this to the biblical story of Adam and Eve where it is articulated that a snake persuaded them to eat the forbidden fruit despite God’s instructions. The Devil who owns this staff wants Goodman Brown to make the wrong choice in participating in the conversion ceremony. Alas, this character perhaps, is the most fundamental individual in this story because it is he who influences the Christians who reside all of their faith in God like Goodman Brown and his wife Faith. This is what makes the story about the test of Goodman Brown’s faith in …show more content…

These three individuals help depict what Goodman Brown’s future will be like on a faith basis with God. Goodman Brown is the person the story is about, and the old travelor is the devil himself who wants Goodman Brown to make the wrong choice and interrupt his strong faith in God. Faith is both the wife, and Goodman Brown’s spiritual faith. All in all, the two characters aside from Goodman Brown took part in determining his faith, and his life was never the same after that night through 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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Young Goodman Brown has lost all hope and is now an empty vessel waiting to be filled with sin. This shows how Young Goodman Brown’s lost of faith has allowed him to be less than human. He becomes a shadow of himself looking for trouble and specifically the devil. In an essence, Young Goodman Brown’s internal conflict vanishes and the story continues to resolve the external conflict.

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For many years, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s writing of “Young Goodman Brown” has been used frequently when discussing the topic of a moral allegory. This story is both a literal and metaphorical journey of a man who is walking to a spiritual crisis, with the devil himself. The use of symbolism and imagery help to set the tone for the reader, when going along with Goodman Brown on his “soul-searching” journey. Herman Melville once wrote that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” has only been improving over time. He said “like wine, was only improving in flavor and body.”

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The theme “things are not always as they appear” plays a huge role in the story. The one symbol that expresses the theme is Faith. She is the main character’s (Goodman) wife. In the beginning of the story on page 386 Faith is trying to hold back Goodman. Faith knows

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In this time period they wanted everyone to have a pure belief in God. If this time people would have not occurred when this writing was written, Edwards probably would have gone a different way with it. “Young Goodman Brown” was written during the time of the Salem Witch Trials. This time period affected the story. We know that this time period affected the writing because along the path the “devil” is talking to a witch and Young Goodman Brown was shocked to see what he did not know.

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While in the woods, Young Goodman Brown goes through many experiences with the devil. He gradually loses both his wife Faith, and his literal faith in God. YGB sees many seemingly righteous people from his life like Goody Cloyse, in deal with the devil. He is puzzled by the fact that some of the people who had taught him the very catechisms he believed would the devil's staff and turn to evil. Eventually, Young Goodman Brown begins to doubt his take rock solid faith by “doubting whether there really was a heaven above him” (Hawthorne, 4).

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The Danger of A Walk With the Devil: The Consequence of Sin and Guilt in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” As Canadian author William Paul Young once said, “sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside.” In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown,” Goodman Brown’s life and entire being is demolished by his sins, never to return to what it once was. Through a guilt-filled journey of sin, Goodman Brown struggles with his faith, his grasp on reality, but most importantly, life as he knows it. By losing everything, Young Goodman Brown suffers the ultimate punishment of lifelong pain and suffering.

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What, my sweet pretty wife, dost thou doubt me already.” (pg.1). This scene shows the conflict Brown experiences between his actual faith and his wife Faith caused by the mysterious man. On the way to the woods Goodman Brown questions the

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The setting appears to symbolize the world outside Puritan Salem, and thus, outside Goodman Brown’s capacity. The forest’s ambience triggers his acknowledgment of the true portrayal of life, embodying his fears and suspicions of what truly stands out of the norm. The path Goodman Brown journeys upon not only represents an embodiment of his fears and angst, but also as a passage of unavoidable sin and duality that later becomes the epitome of his pride’s destruction and ultimate recognition of the nature of life. During his solitary expedition through the woods, Goodman Brown also faces numerous Puritan citizens whom he originally assumes to be solely pure, such as Goody Cloyse and Deacon Gookin. He later realizes that the journey he has commenced upon is a ceremonial form of a sinful congregation; by encountering his fellow citizens, he fully acknowledges the nature of life.

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A Test on Faith In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown,” the author uses mystery and suspense to hold the attention of the reader. One of the most obvious questions is if these events are actually real or if they are all a dream. However, whether the events are imaginary or reality, they have the same impact on Brown’s life whether they took place, or were just a twisted nightmare. Hawthorne shows that a strong faith is the greatest asset of a man or woman, and when that faith is compromised, the effects of this can cause one to be filled with doubt and cynicism toward the rest of the world.

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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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Never the less, it left him unable to see the good in anything or anyone. He lived out his life with Faith in misery, suspicious of everyone he thought he once knew including his beloved wife. At the same time as Goodman Brown’s beliefs are stunned, Hawthorne aims for the reader to question their own way of thinking. Can we really trust the trustworthy and are good people actually as they appear to be, or do we all have some sort of concealed

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1 In Hawthorne 's essay “Young Goodman Brown”, does it matter whether or not the protagonist, Goodman Brown, dreamt the events in the story? The idea and drive behind religious faith and belief is a concept consistently explored in Young Goodman Brown (YGB). The story explores Brown 's journey in a single night which inexplicably ends with a tarnished perspective on religious faith as portrayed by his fellow villagers. Brown himself grows to be disillusioned on faith but the events leading up to this shift however, is ambiguous at best, with the debate mostly centred towards the notion that Brown merely dreamt the events, resulting in an unfair and biased outcome in terms of his sentiment towards the villagers and his own belief.

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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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As a Puritan man married to “Faith”, his choice to continue into the unknown leads him to contemplate and create new opinions of his religion. This scene also shows many instances of symbolism that refer to the devil and sinning. Goodman Brown encountering the old man is significant in his transformation because it displays his crucial decision that leads

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