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young goodman brown character analysis essay
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Comparing Fall of the House of Usher, Young Goodman Brown, and Rip Van Winkle
In the early eighteen hundreds, literature in the Americas started a revolution of style in upcoming authors. Authors started to look towards nature for symbolism and society as a source of sin. The underlined meaning in most of these stories was meant to leave the reader with a new perspective of their personal lives and society as a whole. Three stories that use this particular technique are Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," Edgar Allen Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher," and Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle.
"Young Goodman Brown", by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a story of a man named Goodman Brown, who is of strong Puritan belief. Goodman Brown leaves his wife, Faith, to travel into the depths of the woods one dark night led by a stranger. Goodman Brown is led to some secret meeting in the woods, where some of his fellow villagers are present. At this point in the story Goodman brown discovers that he is about to unravel hidden parts of the villagers' lives. "This night it shall be granted to you to know their secret deeds…"(946).
Goodman Brown feels out of place and worried that his fellow Puritans would have secret hidden sins. The conflict for Goodman Brown comes in his decision whether he should join in the circle of sin and be like the rest of his village or hold true to his beliefs and reject any attempt to be persuaded. The climax of the story comes when Goodman Brown decides to stick by his religion and not to enter the circle of sin even though his wife, Faith, is a part of the sinning group. "Faith! Faith!…look up to heaven and resist the wicked one"(947). The denouement of Goodman Brown is tragic in an off beat sense. Goodma...
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.... These meanings dealt with the different aspects of live and their force of influence. These stories dealt with unexplained mysteries, imagination of characters, and the influence of nature. Each character had a certain conflict to confront or over come and each other their fates in the story explains the author's points of individual and societal problems.
Bibliography:
Hawthorne, Nathaniel,"Young Goodman Brown." Anthology of American Literautre. Ed. George McMicheal et al 2 vols. 7th ed.New York: Macmillan, 2000. Vol.1. 938-948
Irving,Washingtion."Rip Van Winkle." Anthology of American Literautre. Ed. George McMicheal et al 2 vols. 7th ed.New York: Macmillan, 2000. Vol.1. 619-632
Poe,Edgar Allen."Fall of the House of Usher." Anthology of American Literautre. Ed. George McMicheal et al 2 vols. 7th ed.New York: Macmillan, 2000. Vol.1. 763-777
Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Young Goodman Brown," in Literature: Reading and Writing the Human Experience, eds. Richard Abcarian, Marvin Klotz, Peter Richardson, 7th ed. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998), p.62.
In “Young Goodman Brown” the author Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote a story about how Young Goodman Brown, who is a recent Christian man and was going to test his faith against the devil, but the devil was not going to make it easy since he test Young Goodman Brown along the way.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” is an allegory. Hawthorne’s moral story is told through the perversion of a religious leader, Goodman Brown. Goodman is a Puritan minister who lets his excessive pride interfere with his relations with the community after he meets with the devil. The result is that Goodman lives the rest of his life in exile within his own community.
The story titled “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne takes place in Salem village, and it is describing the dream of a young man coming face to face with the Devil, who appears in a form of an old man and goes with Goodman Brown during his errand in the wood. Through his journey in the woods with the Devil, Goodman Brown is going to discover more about the evil in man, and he is going to know that the evil consists inside everyone.
Edgar Allen Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales. New American Library. New York, 1972
Hawthorne’s depiction of artificiality of the city helps develop the Romantic style writing in “Young Goodman Brown.” For example, Goodman Brown enters a quest into
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.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown." Norton Anthology of American Literature. Vol1. Ed. Nina Baym, et al. New York: Norton, 1994. 1198-1207.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown." The Norton Anthology American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2007. 1289 - 1298.
Young Goodman Brown is a holy man, with a repressed wish inside of him to explore the unknown. This wish came to him through a dream and changed the rest of his life dramatically. The story "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne shows us the possible outcomes of Young Goodman Brown's decision to explore into the forest to find the unknown. Hawthorne also uses symbols in the story to represent good and evil. It is a story about a man whose true identity prevailed and destroys him from the inside out.
Young Goodman Brown goes through a fundamental transformation in Young Goodman Brown, as he loses his faith in humanity through one surreal experience he encounters. At the beginning of the novel, Goodman Brown is a God-loving Puritan who lives with his beloved new wife, Faith, in the town of Salem. He is on an unknown errand, and travels into the woods in the middle of the night. Goodman Brown meets up with a shady companion, and together they travel deeper into the woods, where they witness a satanic gathering containing the minister, priest, Indians, and everyone in town. Goodman Brown sees Faith being inducted as a newest member of this satanic cult, and screams f...
Hawthorn, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown" The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Vol. I. Shorter Seventh Edition. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2008. 620-629. Print.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Fall of the House of Usher.” The American Tradition in Literature. Ed. George Perkins and Barbara Perkins. ___________________: McGraw Hill., 2008. Pg-pg. Print.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”, the reader is essentially taking a journey with Goodman Brown, who has left his faith behind and has begun a journey embarking on sin, which is where his life will ultimately be altered. The young man in the story has a wife named Faith, takes a rather peculiar journey at the darkest time of the night, and how in that journey loses his faith in all things. Goodman Browns journey is one to be discussed and one to be analyzed deeply, because his journey is unlike any other individual’s life altering experiences.
As Edgar Allan Poe wrote, "The Fall of the House of Usher", he uses characterization, and imagery to depict fear, terror, and darkness on the human mind.