Compare And Contrast Goodman Brown And Good Country People

In the stories “Young Goodman Brown” and “Good Country People,” the characters of Goodman Brown and the grandmother live under an assumption that they are good Christian people, who, after they die will receive a grand reward for their life as a good Christians by going to heaven. Some key differences are Hawthorne pursues these ideas through his Puritan religious past which explains that Goodman Brown cannot receive redemption, but through a specific set of parameters. Hawthorne is trying to show the sin that every human has inherited through Adam and Eve of the Bible, and the give a greater understanding of the psychological, religious and historical context to events like the Salem witch trials. It examines the heart of man and reveals how

dark it can be. (Jacob, Laurie) Whereas O’Connor gives her characters a chance at redemption through circumstances and grace.
There are differences to be seen in their characters’ feelings and ideas, the grandmother in A Good Man Is Hard To Find tells the misfit, “I know you’re a good man.

You do not look a bit like you have common blood.” (O’connor p.433) In the story, the grandmother judges a person’s morality or goodness, at least in some part based on the individual’s heritage. Later in the story the misfit says to the grandmother, “I ain’t a good man, but I ain’t the worst in the world neither,” (p.434). It is through this interaction of the misfit and the grandmother the reader can see the definition of morality when relating it to a person is not connected to their heritage, but instead is connected to the inner concept they maintain about themselves. Using the Grandmother and the Misfit , O’Connor reveals the flaws in humanity and its need to be redeemed through grace. (Harris, Abbie

2014).
In Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown this same understanding is reached, but is connected much more closely with a person’s individual perception of what is morally good. Goodman Brown in the story believes he knows and understands and knows the actions of the people who live in his community. By holding this belief, it causes him to be judgmental of these people, which in a sense brings on his own misery. At the end of the story the reader is shown that everyone Goodman Brown has passed judgment on has gone on with their lives while he remains stuck in his.
In the end of both stories even though they approach the meaning of “moral good” from different directions both stories and up with relatively similar understandings. In both stories the reader can see the moral good being discussed is based in a society’s and individual person’s ethics. This established understanding establishes both stories as successful allegories of ethical success.
In both stories the main characters of Goodman Brown and the grandmother set out on their different excursions holding a belief that they are good, righteous people.

Brown sets out on his journey into the forest, explaining to his wife Faith he must do this. (Jacob, Laurie) He has a deep belief that he must confront evil to test his beliefs of himself, and know he is righteous and receive his work reward in heaven. The grandmother sets out on her journey confident in her Christian beliefs, as the family stops at a restaurant to eat. She is very sanctimonious and commiserating with the restaurant owner, very similar to Goodman Brown, that “a good man is hard to find” (O’Connor,

P.431)
Throughout the stories both of these characters have their spirituality challenged. Being confronted with the fact that Deacon Gookin and Goody Cloyse are hypocrites, who taught him all he knows religiously, Goodman Brown begins to question sanctity of the people he and the whole community hold as their leaders. Then seeing his wife and calling to her only to see her pink ribbons fall to the ground, seemingly to symbolize her fall from grace, he falls unconscious later to wake with complete dissolution of his faith. Goodman Brown believes in the misery on unutterable of the human existence. He has lost what faith he had that he himself, was one of the righteous. And then as a consequence, “his dying hour was gloom”. (Hawthorne, P.388)

With any tangible proof withstanding, Goodman Brown begins to reject God. Very similar to him is the Misfit in “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”, who at one time was a gospel singer, but now complains that “Jesus thrown everything off balance.” (O’Connor, p.436 ) by being convicted without reason or “documentation.”(p.436) The Misfit feels there is no rationality to the world, he has lost his faith just as Goodman Brown has. Even after shooting the grandmother, the Misfit can find “no real pleasure in life.” (p.437). Through the grandmother and the Misfit, the recognition of one’s own flaws is seen and realization redemption is attainable even when not sought after. (Harris, 2014)
There can be irony seen in the fact that the grandmother, who at one point is extremely secure in her Christian righteousness, is completely shaken by her experience with the criminals that killed her son and his whole family, but finds redemption in this dark moment learning that she is also a sinner and in essence is saved spiritually.
For the characters of Young Goodman Brown and the Misfit, faith cannot save them and they cannot be simply chosen by God. Goodman Brown did not just lose his faith, he instead came to the horrible realization in the flawed nature of his puritanical doctrine. Which is different than O’Connor’s Catholicism and its ability to save the Christians through grace.
Both Hawthorne in Young Goodman Brown and O’Connor in A Good Man is Hard to Find deal with the morality and ethical norms of society and the way that these norms influence the interactions of the people in the society. The largest difference in these two stories is the way that this moral good is classified. It is very clear that Hawthorne derives his definition of moral good for his basis in Christianity, O’Connor comes to the very same conclusion and reaches the same points, but it is influencing combined with other social norms and definitions of what the moral good is.