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Analysis of ambiguity in young goodman brown by hawthorne
Analysis of ambiguity in young goodman brown by hawthorne
Symbolism and ambiguity in Hawthorne's work
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As the poet Adam Smith once said, “On the road from the City of Skepticism, I had to pass through the Valley of Ambiguity.” This leads into the ideaology that Nathaniel Hawthorne carries throughout the story “Rappaccinni’s Daughter.” Within the story, Hawthorne leaves many elements of plot, character, and verbal discourse ambiguous to the reader. This narrative technique allows for the story to have various interpretations as each individual sees it. Throughout “The Discourse of Romance: Truth and Fantasy in Hawthorne’s Point of View” by Allene Cooper and “Gardens and Edens: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter” and Bernard Malmud’s “The Lady of the Lake” by Edward A. Abramson, the ambiguous nature or Hawthorne’s writing is highlighted …show more content…
and emphasized throughout the story. Through Cooper’s article, the element of ambiguity in “Rappaccinni’s Daughter” is fully explored. For example, the story is narrated through the point of view of a narrator summarizing and commenting on the story, occassionally switching to the characters thoughts. However, discrepancies are left as switches between narrator and character are left unclear. For instance, one paragraph begins with the charcter Giovanni’s thoughts and ends ambiguisly. “Giovanni had not considered with himself what should be his deportment...She came lightly along the path, and met him near the broken fountain. There was a surprise in her face, but vrightened by a simple and kind expression of pleasure” (Cooper). Hawthorne utilizes key words and phrases as to not allow the reader to be certain who is talking and whose thoughts are being said. No phrases such as “he thought” or “he said” are emphasized in the paragraph so that the reader would know for certain these were Giovanni’s thoughts rather than the narrator’s (Cooper). As a result, Hawthornes confuses the reader by including information the character does not know within the same paragraph as the characters private thoughts allows for various interpretations to be made, further creating a chaotic ambiguity within the text. Furthermore the article highlighted Hawthorne’s mysterious nature through the character of Beatrice. In the lines “She became gay, and appeared to derive a pure delight from her communion with the you.. Evidently her experience of life had been confined…” (Cooper). Certain words that key a noncommittal attitude such as “appeared to” and “evidently” are employed by the narrator to create ambivalence for the reader in Beatrice’s character. In addition, the reader is unsure if this is Giovanni speaking or the narrator, further allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions to what Hawthorne’s intentions really are within his dubious writing. In a similar manner, Abramson’s article touches on Hawthorne’s extensive use of ambiguity throughout “Rappaccinni’s Daughter” by means of character and plot.
One example is that of the cryptic nature of the character Baglioni. Baglioni is an enemy of Rappaccinni’s but a “friend” to Giovanni. At the conclusion of the story, Beatrice dies due to the antidote that Baglioni has produced in order to save her. He exclaims in a “tone of triumph mixed with horror” (Abramson). This points the reader into a multitude of directions in which the character Baglioni can be interpreted. His reaction alludes to the reader that Baglioni may have intended to kill Beatrice and that it was not an antidote at all, or that he didn’t intend for her to die but it worked out in his favor in the end, or that he was victorious over his rival Rappaccinni and proved Giovanni wrong too. The ambiguity within Baglioni’s character grants the reader the ability to decipher whether or not he is evil all along, or what his character truly entails. Another aspect of the story that contains vagueness is that of the Garden of Eden and Rappaccinni’s garden. The Garden of Eden created by God is supposed to be ideal in every way, however, Rappaccinni’s garden is poisonous, and Beatrice doesn’t want to stay in the garden. Furthermore, this goes against the ideals of the Garden of Eden and represents the opposite as Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden and condemned to the outside world, and Beatrice and Giovanni were condemned from the world and forced to live within the garden (Abramson). Consequently, the reader is left with the question, “Is Rappaccinni’s garden the modern day Garden of Eden? Or is it the exact opposite?” Overall, Abramson highlighted how Hawthorne frequents the utilization of uncertainty within his writings and especially “Rappacinni’s Daughter” in order to create a unique openness to interpretation of characters and
meaning. In conclusion, throughout both articles, the reader gains new insight into Hawthorne’s writing style and context behind his inconclusive writing. They both draw a connection between the ambiguous with which Hawthorne writes. Allene Cooper’s article “The Discourse of Romance: Truth and Fantasy in Hawthorne’s Point of View” illustrates numerous examples of characters ambiguous nature and clarifys how this effects the reader. Similarly, “Gardens and Edens: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter” and Bernard Malmud’s “The Lady of the Lake” by Edward A. Abramson furthers this idea of equivocal writing essential to Hawthorne’s ideal of romance and narratice technique. As a result, the whole story is dubious in nature and left for the reader to interpret. Ultimately, “Rappaccini’s Daughter” is one of Hawthorne’s notable stories filled with ambiguous characters and plot in order to misguide the readers and create confusion.
Murphy, B. & Shirley J. The Literary Encyclopedia. [nl], August 31, 2004. Available at: http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2326. Access on: 22 Aug 2010.
When inquiring about the comparisons and contrasts between Melville’s Benito Cereno and Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of an American Slave, Written by Himself, the following question almost inevitably arises: Can a work of fiction and an autobiography be compared at all? Indeed, the structure of the two stories differs greatly. Whereas Douglass’s Narrative adapts a typical pattern of autobiographies, i.e. a chronological order of birth, childhood memories, events that helped shape the narrator etc., Benito Cereno is based on a peculiar three-layered foundation of a central story recounting the main events, a deposition delineating the events prior to the first part, and an ending.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” utilize character responsibilities to create a sinister plot. For Hawthorne, protagonist Young Goodman Brown must leave his wife at home while he partakes in a night journey. For Poe, ancillary Fortunato covets a pretentious manner towards his wine tasting skills, and after being ‘challenged’ decides to prove his expertise by sampling Amontillado. Hawthorne and Poe showcase a theme of darkness but differ in their approach to the setting, characters, and fate of entrapment.
... "The myth of the Garden: Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'Rappaccini's Daughter'". Studies in the Literary Imagination II, 1969, (pp. 3-12)
Writing a journal from the perspective of a fictional eighteenth century reader, a mother whose daughter is the age of Eliza's friends, will allow me to employ reader-response criticism to help answer these questions and to decipher the possible social influences and/or meanings of the novel. Though reader-response criticism varies from critic to critic, it relies largely on the idea that the reader herself is a valid critic, that her critique is influenced by time and place,...
164-69. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 341. Detroit: Gale, 2013.Artemis Literary Sources. Web. 5 May 2014.
Stillinger, Jack, Deidre Lynch, Stephen Greenblatt, and M H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume D. New York, N.Y: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. Print.
2.) Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown". printed in: A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature: Fourth Edition. Editors Wilfred L. Guerin, Earle Labor, Lee Morgan, Jeanne C. Reesman, John R. Willingham. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 1999.
Delamotte, Eugenia C. reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism Vol. 37. Ed. Paula Kepos. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1991.
In the late eighteenth century arose in literature a period of social, political and religious confusion, the Romantic Movement, a movement that emphasized the emotional and the personal in reaction to classical values of order and objectivity. English poets like William Blake or Percy Bysshe Shelley seen themselves with the capacity of not only write about usual life, but also of man’s ultimate fate in an uncertain world. Furthermore, they all declared their belief in the natural goodness of man and his future. Mary Shelley is a good example, since she questioned the redemption through the union of the human consciousness with the supernatural. Even though this movement was well known, none of the British writers in fact acknowledged belonging to it; “.”1 But the main theme of assignment is the narrative voice in this Romantic works. The narrator is the person chosen by the author to tell the story to the readers. Traditionally, the person who narrated the tale was the author. But this was changing; the concept of unreliable narrator was starting to get used to provide the story with an atmosphere of suspense.
Hawthorne’s stories young goodman and rappaccini's daughter both compare to the biblical tale of the garden of eden. in the next few paragraphs you will see how they are alike.
Dalnekoff, Donna Isaacs. "Eldorado as an, ‘Impossible Dream’." Readings on Candide. Ed. Thomas Walsh. San Diego, Calif.: Greenhaven Press, 2001. P64-71. Rpt. in Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800 vol. 110. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center.
...thern Literary Journal. Published by: University of North Carolina Press. Vol. 4, No. 2 (spring, 1972), pp. 128-132.
Two boys stare at an unfamiliar girl sitting by herself and whisper, “She must be new,” to each other. They walk over to her, wanting to know about her, and ask her where she is from. The human tendency of wanting to know about the unknown is an idea writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne use in their works. Hawthorne uses the style of Romanticism, which was most prominent during the early nineteenth century and includes specific traits such as devotion to nature, feelings of passion, and the lure of the exotic. It also emphasizes traits including the idea of solitary life rather than life in society, the reliance on the imagination, and the appreciation of spontaneity. “Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Hawthorne is about Doctor Rappaccini's garden and daughter Beatrice who live in Italy. A man named Giovanni living near the garden falls in love with Beatrice, but Beatrice is infused with poison and unintentionally kills living things that touch or go near her. “Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a work of Romanticism because it includes Giovanni’s lure to the exotic, solitary life as a theme, and appreciation of nature in descriptions.
“May not one man have several voices, Robin, as well as two complexions?” (1261), asks the friendly gentleman in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “My Kinsman, Major Molineux.” Just as one man may have multiple facets, so too may a story, if we correctly interpret samples of Hawthorne’s work. It seems as though modern readers practically assume that his work ought to be read allegorically, and indeed, The Scarlet Letter, and many other famous works of Hawthorne, are brilliant allegories if they are interpreted as such. And yet, Nathaniel Hawthorne, more than a religious zealot or political advocate, was an avid student of colonial history. We read in the Norton Anthology’s brief biography of Hawthorne that, “[Hawthorne] was steeping himself in colonial history more than the political issues of his time” (1248). Becoming more familiar with the history of his young nation, he even published “a child’s history of colonial and revolutionary New England” (1249). This being as it is, it would do Hawthorne’s short stories a great injustice to dismiss their merit as historical commentaries. Obviously, Hawthorne’s works are multifaceted, and one must determine how to best read and interpret them. Can the reader of Hawthorne’s short story “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” interpret this work as an allegory, and if he does, what does the story lose in terms of its historical merit?