The Innocence Of Man Exposed In The Black Ball By Ralph Ellison

Hope is dead. That’s what John and young Goodman Brown feel like is true after they experience two different events. In the short story, The Black Ball by Ralph Ellison, John was an African American working for a white man during the time when racial discrimination was freely practiced and sanctioned. While he was working for his boss, Barry, a white boy took his son’s ball and threw it into Barry’s office. John’s son was blamed for the injuries done to Barry’s office, and John was convinced that even though the country proclaimed freedom and justice for all, racial segregation and prejudice would never be done away with easily. In the short story, Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Brown was a new husband in the puritan town

of Salem. He attended a witches’ meeting one night to see what it was like, and prior and during the meeting, he realized that those he thought were high and holy were actually wicked and wretched. Young Goodman Brown became convinced that he could never trust anyone anymore. Both The Black Ball by Ralph Ellison and Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne deal with disillusionment of man, but they do so in different ways.
Disillusionment occurs in the two stories because of the different situations revealing the evil tendencies of man.

In the Black Ball, John bemoaned that his little boy would have to play with the black ball “until he got sick of playing” (Ellison, 352). John was already sick and tired of being mistreated for the sole reason that his skin was darker. His country was not living up to their premise that all men were created equal, and he knew that the world was not as bright as his little boy might now think. John became disillusioned, because time and time again, he was treated like one less than human. In the meeting that young Goodman Brown attended, the chair said, “Evil is the nature of mankind,” (Hawthorne, 67). Young Goodman Brown did not realize before this incident with the witches meeting that everyone on earth is prone to falling below the standard. When he comprehended that not all was good and perfect in the world, he was overwhelmed with disillusionment. The evil tendencies of mankind surprised young Goodman Brown and would eventually surprise John’s boy to the point that they would not be able to see that much or any good in those that disillusioned

them.
Disillusionment is revealed in The Black Ball and created in Young Goodman Brown through the destruction of pre-existing mindsets.

In the Black Ball, John was so disillusioned that he did not know what to do when a white man was friendly to him. “Not used to anything like that, are you? ... Fellow like me offering a fellow like you something besides a rope” (Ellison, 346). John’s mindset was so ingrained in the accepted terms that the black man was inferior to the white man, that he automatically refused a nice offer from a white man. He was so disillusioned and passive that he never imagined that a white man would be good to him. Contrarily, in Young Goodman Brown, Brown had the mindset that those in the church and in his community that had high standing were pure and holy on the inside as well as out. When the evil older gentleman with him said that he had a close acquaintance with many of the high and important people in the country, Goodman Brown cried out, “Can this be so?’… with a stare of amazement at his undisturbed companion” (Hawthorne, 58). When young Goodman Brown’s mindset was disproved, he became disillusioned, and when John’s mindset was disproved, it revealed his

disillusionment.
Disillusionment results in pessimism in both stories because of the different situations the characters endured. John knew that his country was not living up to their standards. John “had a hard time seeing as [he and his boy] walked back, and scratched [himself] by stumbling into the evergreens as we went around the building” (Ellison, 351). Barry told John that his boy was to be in the backyard only, and the reason behind this was the fact that he was black. This did not coincide with the profession of his country. When John was being discriminated, he was so discouraged and disillusioned that he cried. Similarly, once Goodman Brown returned from his journey to the forest, he would never be the same, regardless that the meeting was only a dream. When he returned to the village, he was “staring about him like a bewildered man.” He could never listen to the preachers or the teachers the same, and could never appreciate his wife like he did before. Every time he saw one of the people that he saw in his dream, he would shrink from them and would imagine the wrath of God coming upon them, because of the true evil in their hearts. Disillusionment, in both John and young Goodman Brown, resulted in despair.
Both The Black Ball by Ralph Ellison and Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne deal with disillusionment of man, but they do so in different ways.