The Theme Of Good Vs. Evil In Young Goodman Brown

A human life it 's full of hard decisions and choices; do we steal the toy from our friend? or wait for our turn? Do we give to the charity? or lie and say we don 't have any spare change? Do we say our prayers every night? or only when we need something? We constantly have to choose between, right vs. wrong, good vs. evil, but we still always have a choice. This theme of good vs. evil is presented throughout almost every aspect of our lives. On TV, the most popular shows, like Walking Dead, utilize it though its Main Characters(good) vs. Zombies(evil).You choose whether to root for the zombies or Rick. In Politics it is used by candidates trying to villainize running mate(s) so that when you vote for them you feel like you 're making the

In religion there has always been the struggle of God vs. the Devil, still though the choices to sin untimely lies with you. This theme of the choice between “good vs. evil” is very evident in Hawthorne 's short story “Young Goodman Brown.” Hawthorne is saying that there is evil throughout our society but the choice of whether you 're evil or not, lies within you. Some critics may argue that Goodman Brown is an innocent man corrupted by the will and tricks of the devil. I completely disagree with this statement and I am not the only one. In Paul J. Hurley’s critical analyses Young Goodman Brown 's “Heart of Darkness.” In this analysis Hurley confronts other critics ideas head and supports the idea that the evil comes from the story 's protagonist. “...Insisting that Goodman Brown is misled by the Devil who conjures up apparitions to befuddle his innocent victim. The idea is comforting but not convincing. To take guilt away from human beings in order to place it on infernal powers is not a satisfactory explanation of the story... I believe the pervasive sense of evil in the story is not separate from or outside its protagonist; it is

The first and most obvious being that Goody Cloyse is a witch. This woman who was very important in the instilling of religious values seen in the line, “That old woman taught me my catechism,”(1116, Hawthorne) This supports the idea that evil is all around us in society, even in the people we thought to be the most holy. The second, and less obvious thing being how Good Cloyse addresses the devil character. She says, “...very image of my old gossip, Goodman Brown, the grandfather of the silly fellow that now is…” (1116, Hawthorne) she calls him Goodman Brown. When we first meet this character the narrative says that he does resemble an old Brown and that he could be his father, “Hawthorne also insists on the similarity between Brown and the Devil- "the second traveller was about fifty years old, apparently in the same rank of life as Goodman Brown, and bearing a considerable resemblance to him...." And we are informed that "they might have been taken for father and son."(413, Hurley) There is a reason for this, Hurley explains that the man the looks like brown because, “he is indisputably Goodman Brown 's own personal devil.”(413, Hurley) The Devil character’s appearance is like that of a magic mirror showing Goodman Brown the Evil version of him that lies