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The meaning of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown
Analysis of Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Analysis of Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Characterization in “Young Goodman Brown”
The dialogue, action and motivation revolve about the characters in the story (Abrams 32-33). It is the purpose of this essay to demonstrate the types of characters present in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” whether static or dynamic, whether flat or round, and whether protrayed through showing or telling.
There are only three well-developed, or three dimensional characters, in this short story, and they are the protagonist, Goodman Brown, and his wife, Faith, and the fellow-traveller or the devil. Faith is, of course, less well developed than her husband; much of her development comes from inference rather than from action,dialogue and explicitly expressed motivation as in the case of Goodman Brown.
From the very outset of the tale, Goodman is a person of action: “YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN came forth at sunset, into the street of Salem village, but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his young wife.” The reader sees him develop emotionally even as he walks away towards the woods:
So they parted; and the young man pursued his way, until, being about to turn the corner by the meeting-house, he looked back and saw the head of Faith still peeping after him, with a melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons.
"Poor little Faith!" thought he, for his heart smote him. "What a wretch am I, to leave her on such an errand! She talks of dreams, too. Methought, as she spoke, there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is to be done tonight. But, no, no! 'twould kill her to think it. Well; she's a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night, I'll cling to h...
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...h these grave, reputable, and pious people, these elders of the church, these chaste dames and dewy virgins, there were men of dissolute lives and women of spotted fame, wretches given over to all mean and filthy vice, and suspected even of horrid crimes.
In this essay on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” we have seen that the narrator’s use of the showing technique presents two dynamic characters, three round characters and a host of undeveloped, static characters.
WORKS CITED
Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms, 7th ed. New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1999.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Young Goodman Brown.” 1835. http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~daniel/amlit/goodman/goodmantext.html
Wagenknecht, Edward. Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Man, His Tales and Romances. New York: Continuum Publishing Co., 1989.
Theme/ Atmosphere: A central theme that is focused on in the book is the circular reasoning of Catch 22. The reason this is used by the military is to create a sense of superiority and to trap the soldiers on the island. The reason few people question Catch 22 is because they don’t want to argue with authority. In contrast, Yossarian inquires why the catch is so difficult to escape and is finally able to find a way around it at the end of the book. Another major theme is the corruption of government and military. I think Heller chose to write about this because he also fought in a war and is commenting on the nature of people in these situations. He is also commenting on the day to day activities of war and many of the irrational and inefficient things the military does to keep functioning. The mood of the book is typically grim, because Yossarian is often focused on death and many of his comrades die. Heller in this way is commenting on how death is inevitable and that especially in the military, death doesn’t mean anything. We see this through when Doc Daneeka “dies” and when the man in white in the hospital dies and a new one is brought in. During war, death is not uncommon, and in the novel death helps set the tone of the story. How does each death in Catch 22 impact the meaning of the
Known today as two of the most prominent American satirists, Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut both served time as soldiers during World War II, Heller serving as a bombardier in Italy (Scoggins) and Vonnegut as a soldier and prisoner of war in Germany (Parr). Not coincidentally, both Heller’s 1961 novel Catch-22 and Vonnegut’s 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death follow the journeys of young men in combat during the Second World War – Captain John Yossarian of the US Army Air Forces and soldier Billy Pilgrim, respectively. While it is evident that these fictional novels are both set during the World War II era and convey bleak images of war, closer inspection of both texts brings to light the common
What the heck was Heller up to? That is a simple, yet daunting question. In the 1961 novel Catch 22 Joseph Heller was poking fun at not only the United States Army but the entire human race. He often would point out how there was a lot of disorientation in the army and how nine out of ten times no one would know what was going on. Heller being the former veteran he was probably had a few experiences with not knowing what was going on. He himself flew 60 missions and was a bombardier like the main character the novel focuses around Captain John Yossarian. Yossarian is the protagonist of the novel and is focused solely on himself. Heller uses copious amounts of satire to tell his story and explain the bewilderment in the army. He uses a lot of comic allusions to make peoples names mean different things, for instance Lieutenant Scheisskopf actually means shi*t head, and Lieutenant Colonel Korn’s name doesn’t necessarily have a meaning like Scheisskopf’s does but his name still has symbolism built in it. Heller has a twisted sense of humor and the way he went about telling his story made you laugh and often think of people that reminded you of the characters. He not only uses comic allusions to tell his story but often uses dark humor in instances you wouldn’t think are funny. Some of the dark humor Heller uses may be offensive to some but others may view it as comic relief. Throughout the novel Yossarian is trying to get “grounded” so he can go back home but there’s always one catch, catch 22. Catch 22 is a no-win situation, every time Yossarian would try to be grounded the doctor would always bring up this catch. It appeared multiple times throughout the storyline and seemed to follow Yossarian wherever he went. One could view ...
The disillusionment with the novel Catch 22 has been caused by many factors, such as the completely unsentimental viewpoints of war as described by Heller, as well as a complete disregard of the romanticism of war that was popular during the time due to the heroics of World War II. Catch 22 is a novel heavily reliant on the experience Heller had from his time in the Air Force that presents a tale of war in an entirely new light. It was a highly controversial topic upon its publication, as critics either loved or hated the novel, mostly for the same or very similar reasons. Catch 22 presents a completely new vision of war, replacing ideas of well-known glories with a nightmare of paradox, bureaucracy and extreme violence (Parker-Anderson 1). Much of the glory was tainted by the extreme use of objectionable language throughout Catch 22, which created much conflict amongst teachers and high school board members as to whether the novel was an appropriate addition to school
Catch-22 is perhaps Joseph Heller’s best known work. Catch-22, published in 1961, is a satire which depicts America’s counter-cultural antiwar attitudes. One terrifying aspect of Catch-22 is life and death is controlled not by the men in the squadron, but by the frightening bureaucracy which continually defies logic in order to achieve their own personal gains. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 is somewhat autobiographical; emphasizes the literary elements of characterization, conflict, and structure of a novel; and has received extensive and through criticism.
It seems to me that the only way to keep track of the order of events throughout the book is to pay attention to how many missions Colonel Cathcart has assigned. Immediately, even after the first chapter, chronological order is not followed. According to “The Structure of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22” by Jan Solomon the order of events seemed to follow two different time lines. The first, of course, was that of Yossarian. Yossarian’s time line follows his “psychological perception of events” (Potts 20). The other time line that appears in the book, according to Solomon, is that of Milo Minderbinder. Even this interpretation of the book having an order of events has a couple flaws in it. The biggest is that Milo and Yossarian are mentioned together in the book before they are introduced later in the book. The most apparent event that came to mind, was that they appeared together at Snowden’s funeral in the tree before they were introduced later in the book, which is actually earlier in time.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown." Norton Anthology of American Literature. Vol1. Ed. Nina Baym, et al. New York: Norton, 1994. 1198-1207.
Clarice Swisher in “Nathaniel Hawthorne: a Biography” states: ”When Hawthorne called his stories ‘romances,’ he meant that they belong within the romantic movement that . . . . emphasize imagination and personal freedom” (18). It is the purpose of this essay to interpret the theme of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” and determine where this “personal freedom” leads.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Young Goodman Brown”. Literature and the Writing Process. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X Day, and Robert Funk. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice, 2002.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown." Literature Craft & Voice. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. 449-55. Print.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown." An Introduction to Literature. Ed. Sylvan Barnet, Morton Berman, Willam Burto. 10th ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1993. 74-85.
At the beginning of his journey, Goodman Brown’s will and pride were both embedded in the belief that he was a pious man. Goodman’s pride in piety evidently fails him, as he discovers that his faith was based on the principles of individuals who had sworn allegiance to the devil. This deplorable truth destroyed his conviction, and in this sense the devil prevailed against Goodman Brown.
In Catch-22, opposite Miller's The Crucible, Joseph Heller utilizes his uncanny wit to present a novel fraught with dark, satiric comedy tied up in a relatively formless plot. The character of Nately acts as a focal point for many of the humorous oxymoronic criticisms contained within Catch-22, as "Nately had a bad start. He came from a good family" (Heller 34), and he ".was the finest, least dedicated man in the whole world" (35). Proliferating Catch-22, satirical dark comedy appears in every chapter, even in the depiction of death (Cockburn 179): ".McWatt turned again, dipped his wings in salute, decided, oh, what the hell, and flew into a mountain"(Heller 157). Furthermore, the plot of Catch-22 follows a cyclical structure in that repetitions of particular events recur in a planned randomness, an oxymoron that pays tribute to Catch-22 itself (Merrill 205-209). A recurring structure within Heller's novel defining his ...
So they parted; and the young man pursued his way until, being about to turn the corner by the meeting–house, he looked back and saw the head of Faith still peeping after him with a melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s allegorical story “Young Goodman Brown” is set in Salem, Massachusetts during the late sixteen hundreds in a time of religious hysteria and only a few generations after the infamous witch trials. Although "Young Goodman Brown" is a fictional tale, it is based on the cynical environment of Salem during this time period. The short story is filled with many literary elements, leading you to question what did exactly happen to the main character at the conclusion. When analyzing a story like "Young Goodman Brown", one must recognize that the story is at whole symbolic. In the text, symbols are used to uncover the truth of the characters. The role of Faith as both a character and a spiritual element are crucial to both the story and the character of Young Goodman Brown.