Every life in one way or another transition from a life of innocence, to a life as an experience individual. Life can be classified as innocent at the start due to our ignorance. The fact that we are not exposed or influenced by what is around us. This is commonly associated with babies, who are new to this world. They have no idea what may be happening in the outside world; although sometimes it can even occur to adults. The baby will not know that its parents may steal for its meals, or the reason it was alive was due to such a dirty process in perspective, sexual intercourse. The baby may grow up thinking that its parents are sweet, normal, and want to become just like them. The irony is comically dark, that the child would want to be "pure" like its parents yet in reality they are not so pure. No one is pure and this is what separates an innocent individual from an experienced individual. To find out that not all things are pure is necessary, but of course "pure" is a subjective term. We as human beings go through this process every single day throughout our entire lives not knowing it. Nathaniel Hawthorne in “Young Goodman Brown” shows us how the protagonist progresses from a state of innocence to becoming an experience person.
When referred by Hawthorne as 'young' it could have meant a number of things, excluding obviously his age. Goodman Brown is initially portrayed as a naive, religious, sweet hearted fellow, and maybe that is what makes him 'innocent', to be able to be ignorant but pure of heart. In the story Young Goodman Brown it clearly shows how sins that are untold can torture a person and rob them of all happiness.”Well, she's a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night I'll cling to her skirts and follow h...
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...nk and that it is shaped by the events that occur. Also the environment that the person grows up plays an important role on how their personality is shaped. As Goodman Brown started his journey he didn’t know what to expect. By him never having any experience in this it shows how such a once pure character such as himself was innocently manipulated by the mere words of a stranger. All of us during our lifetime will go through an initiation that will lead us from being a naïve individual to a person who is experienced. One day we will come across people who will challenge our beliefs and try to convince us in to change it.
Works Cited
"Good kid, bad kid; Children are born innocent, but what makes some turn to criminal acts? Experts say kids learn what is right or wrong through their experiences, environment and societal influences." Strait Times 10/29/2009, Print
Analyzing innocence has always been a difficult task, not only due to it’s rapid reevaluation in the face of changing societal values, but also due to the highly private and personal nature of the concept. The differences between how people prioritize different types of innocence - childhood desires, intellectual naivety, sexual purity, criminal guilt, etc. - continually obscures the definition of innocence. This can make it difficult for people to sympathize with others’ loss of purity, simply because their definition of that loss will always be dissimilar to the originally expressed idea. Innocence can never truly be adequately described, simply because another will never be able to precisely decipher the other’s words. It is this challenge, the challenge of verbally depicting the isolationism of the corruption of innocence, that Tim O’Brien attempts to endeavour in his fictionalized memoir, The
The use of symbolism in "young Goodman Brown" shows that evil is everywhere, which becomes evident in the conclusion of this short story. Hawthorne's works are filled with symbolic elements and allegorical elements. "Young Goodman Brown" deals mostly with conventional allegorical elements, such as Young Goodman Brown and Faith. In writing his short stories or novels he based their depiction of sin on the fact that he feels like his father and grandfather committed great sins. There are two main characters in this short story, Faith and Young Goodman Brown. "Young Goodman Brown is everyman seventeenth-century New England the title as usual giving the clue. He is the son of the Old Adam, and recently wedded to Faith. We must note that every word is significant in the opening sentence: "Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunset into the street of Sale, Village; but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his young w2ife.
...id off. By having a secular knowledge of the real world, the narrator was able to keep up the strength to keep fighting, something that Brown could not do since he had never been exposed to such challenges before.
Innocence is usually associated with being pure. That being said, children are innocent because they perceive the world as benevolent and fair. They do not know the good or bad, or at least that’s what adults think. They were born pure and free from sin, which shifts as they gain experience. Philip Pullman’s novel “The Golden Compass” centers
In "Young Goodman Brown," Nathaniel Hawthorne, through the use of deceptive imagery, creates a sense of uncertainty that illuminates the theme of man's inability to operate within a framework of moral absolutism. Within every man there is an innate difference between good and evil and Hawthorne's deliberate use of ambiguity mirrors this complexity of human nature. Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown, is misled by believing in the perfectibility of humanity and in the existence of moral absolutes. According to Nancy Bunge, Hawthorne naturally centers his story upon a Puritan protagonist to convey the "self-righteous" that he regards as the "antithesis of wisdom"(4). Consequently, Young Goodman Brown is unable to accept the indefinable vision of betrayal and evil that he encounters in the forest. The uncertainty of this vision, enhanced by Hawthorne's deliberate, yet effective, use of ambiguity, is also seen in the character of Faith, the shadows and darkness of the forest, and the undetectable boundaries that separate nightmarish dreams from reality.
"Young Goodman Brown" is a short story published in 1835 by American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. The story takes place in 17th century Puritan New England, a common setting for Hawthorne's works, and addresses the Calvinist/Puritan belief that all of humanity exists in a state of depravity, except those who are born in a state of grace. In a symbolic fashion, the story follows Young Goodman Brown's journey into self-scrutiny, which results in his loss of virtue and faith. Next, we learn that young Goodman Brown is going on a journey through the forest but we don't know why beside his ancestry had claim to been on the same life journey. We also get a told that young Goodman Brown is married man to a women named Faith who wears a pink ribbon in her hair they are from this nearby Salem village, he takes pride in his village and its leaders and all that he has been taught in his life. But as the story goes along we find that his family and the other leader in the village did some pretty wicked stuff back in the day that has not been talk about. This is going to set the tone for a moral conflict for young Goodman in what could also be dream like state of mind.
To truly comprehend the themes in "Young Goodman Brown" you must first understand the influences on Nathaniel Hawthorne's writing. According to the website Hawthorneinsalem.org, Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, son of also a Nathaniel Hawthorne, was actually a descendant of John Hathorne, one of the judges who oversaw the Salem Witch Trials. Because of Hawthorne's Puritan upbringing, much of writings are moral allegories set in colonial New England. Hawthorne returns again to Salem in "Young Goodman Brown" and deals with the theme of the loss of innocence. This theme works to argue the benefits and consequences of Goodman Brown's beliefs before and after his encounter with the devil as well as the beliefs of the Puritans as a whole.
"All things truly wicked start from an innocence,” states Ernest Hemingway on his view of innocence. Innocence, what every youth possesses, is more accurately described as a state of unknowing but not ignorance- which connotation suggests a blissfully positive view of the world. Most youth are protected from the harsh realities of the adult world. Therefore they are able to maintain their state of innocence. While innocence normally wanes over time, sometimes innocence can be abruptly taken away. Some of the characters in Truman Capotes In Cold Blood lost their innocence due to the traumatic events they experienced in childhood and adulthood while some had none to begin with.
The loss of innocence is an occurrence that happens in every life, and it is so easily taken. A traumatic moment is often the thief of innocence, leaving the victim scarred from the experience. Events like these are often the process of paving the road into adulthood, and aid in the metamorphosis of a child to an adult. In “My Father’s Noose” by Grace Talusan, “Dothead” by Amit Majmudar, and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, each of the characters do not understand the concept of negligent personages. Once the protagonist knows that society is not composed of perfect people, their character and personality changes, as it forces them to take a look at their own morals. This prepares the protagonist for the lives
In Young Goodman Brown, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the tale of a man and his discovery of evil. Hawthorne’s primary concern is with evil and how it affects Young Goodman Brown. Through the use of tone and setting, Hawthorne portrays the nature of evil and the psychological effects it can have on man. He shows how discovering the existence of evil brings Brown to view the world in a cynical way. Brown learns the nature of evil and, therefore, feels surrounded by its presence constantly.
Within Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown, age becomes an important component to the characters of the story. Hawthorne uses age to show if one is innocent or experienced. In Young Goodman Brown, Brown as he walks down the forest, he realizes even his “father never went into the woods on such an errand” (Hawthorne 2). To Brown, the stranger replies, “I have been as well acquainted with your family” (Hawthorne 2). In the scene, Brown represents innocence and consciousness because of the fact that he says his father would not even make an attempt, to walk on the road with the Devil, who beguiles as an old man. To contrast innocence, Hawthorne uses the Devil as its opposite, being experienced. And so the Devil replies in the manner of experience. He dates all the way back towards the time of Brown’s “grandfather, the constable” who “lashed the Quaker woman” along “the streets of Salem” (Hawthorne 2). Hawthorne illustrates the negative idea of experience, how sin starts to grow as life goes on and how sin can be genetic. Brown, being the grandson, he should have known his grandfather more than the Devil. The knowledge in which the Devil resides particularly is of the far past instead of the recent past. Thus it proves the Devil is the mascot of experience. Even though he acknowledges the far past, the Devil, in the present state looks “about fifty years old” (Hawthorne 2). Knowing his age is abnormal, the Devil beguiles his age and
Goodman Brown does not emerge from the forest tougher or braver but hateful and spiteful because he becomes enlightened to the ways of world. He comes to terms with the reality tha...
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” is based in the author’s hometown of Salem, at the end of the 17th century-- around the time-period of the infamous Salem Witch Trials (Shmoop Editorial Team). “Young Goodman Brown” is full of religious hypocrisy, with a small amount of symbolism sprinkled in.
Finding strong evidence surrounding this topic could be significant to reducing crime rates and addressing the public health issue. What I have learn from research-based evidence and analyzing social and cultural theories, is that criminal behavior is multifaceted and is influenced by a range of determinants in which surrounds the nature versus nurture debate. I believe that nature and nurture both play significant roles to the making of a criminal.
Loeber, R and Farrington, D (2000). Young children who commit crime: Epidemiology, developmental origins, risk factors, early interventions, and policy implications. Development and Psychopathology, , pp 737-762.