YGB vs. ARAby
21 September 2013
Symbolic Women
This essay is about two women and what their symbolism does for
one mans mental fate and one young boys vision of first love and escape
from reality.
We will first start with “Young Goodman Brown”. Female purity was such
a powerful idea in Puritan New England that men relied on women’s faith
to shore up their own. Faith, Young Goodman Brown’s wife, is the
steadying force for Young Goodman Brown as he wonders whether to
renounce his religion and join the devil. His first words in the story are
“my love and my faith” when replying to his wife (Hawthorne 80).Him
using the word faith in the outset about his wife lets you know
immediately the impact his wife will have throughout this story. When he
leaves Faith at the beginning of the story, he swears that after this one
night of evildoing, “I’ll cling to her skirts and follow her to
heaven”(Hawthorne 81). This idea, that a man’s wife will redeem
him and do the work of true religious belief for the whole family was a
popular belief during Hawthorne’s time. Goodman Brown clings to his
idealized of Faith’s purity throughout his journey in the forest, swearing
that as long as Faith remains holy, it will help him to resist the devil.
During his journey through the woods, when the pink ribbon flutters
down from the sky, Goodman Brown sees it as a sign that Faith has
definitely fallen into the realm of the devil—she has shed this sign of her
purity and innocence. When even Faith’s purity dissolves, Goodman
Brown loses any chance to resist the devil and redeem his faith. When
Goodman Brown finds that Faith is present at the devil’s ceremony in the
woods, the realization changes all his ideas about what is good or bad in
the world, taking away his strength and ability to resist evil. He is
mortified by the reality of the woods.
In “Araby,” the
Symbolic Women
This essay is about two women and what their symbolism does for
one mans mental fate and one young boys vision of first love and escape
from reality.
We will first start with “Young Goodman Brown”. Female purity was such
a powerful idea in Puritan New England that men relied on women’s faith
to shore up their own. Faith, Young Goodman Brown’s wife, is the
steadying force for Young Goodman Brown as he wonders whether to
renounce his religion and join the devil. His first words in the story are
“my love and my faith” when replying to his wife (Hawthorne 80).Him
using the word faith in the outset about his wife lets you know
immediately the impact his wife will have throughout this story. When he
leaves Faith at the beginning of the story, he swears that after this one
night of evildoing, “I’ll cling to her skirts and follow her to
heaven”(Hawthorne 81). This idea, that a man’s wife will redeem
him and do the work of true religious belief for the whole family was a
popular belief during Hawthorne’s time. Goodman Brown clings to his
idealized of Faith’s purity throughout his journey in the forest, swearing
that as long as Faith remains holy, it will help him to resist the devil.
During his journey through the woods, when the pink ribbon flutters
down from the sky, Goodman Brown sees it as a sign that Faith has
definitely fallen into the realm of the devil—she has shed this sign of her
purity and innocence. When even Faith’s purity dissolves, Goodman
Brown loses any chance to resist the devil and redeem his faith. When
Goodman Brown finds that Faith is present at the devil’s ceremony in the
woods, the realization changes all his ideas about what is good or bad in
the world, taking away his strength and ability to resist evil. He is
mortified by the reality of the woods.
In “Araby,” the