Preview

Young Goodman Brown Ambiguity

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
593 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Young Goodman Brown Ambiguity
When interpreting Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story, "Young Goodman Brown", one can decide Hawthorne's intentional ambiguity towards Goodman Brown's encounter with the devil in the forest. Throughout the story, textual evidence influences the reader to discover that the meeting with the Devil did actually occur in reality. Hawthorne was extremely straightforward with his references towards reality in "Young Goodman Brown" through Brown's recount of the details. He makes known throughout his detailing that there was no way that Brown's meeting with the devil could be a dream. Brown noticed everything around him throughout his journey, from the color of the fire to a rock. "…arose a rock, bearing some rude, natural resemblance either to an
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Analysis Of Hypocrisy In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown
    • 655 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Analysis Of Hypocrisy In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

    During his experience in the forest, Goodman Brown begins to understand fully that his community is full of hypocrisy, which leads him to being distrustful to those around him. This is because his search for spiritual enlightenment leads him to lose his faith in God. What’s more, his nighttime journey forces him to question the devil’s existence in the darkness that he finds himself. In addition, he begins to understand that people use religion to hide their evil deeds. Such is the case he associates with his father and grandfather violent atrocities disguised as their moral obligations (388). In fact the scene leaves the reader with questions about the reality Goodman Brown faces as he witnesses a witch, the devil worshippers around the alter and a spooky dark cloud. However, the occurrence the devil shows him becomes the important message and the source of Goodman’s misgivings (Bloom, 42).…

    • 655 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Rhetorical Strategies In Young Goodman Brown
    • 405 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Rhetorical Strategies In Young Goodman Brown

    The short story “Young Goodman Brown”, published in 1835 by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a tale of innocence and evil. This piece of literature consists of several different rhetorical strategies. The author utilizes symbolism in order to create depth and save a spot for his work in high culture. He writes about delicate ribbons, a serpentine staff and an eerie forest as he pushes the narrative that the spiritual population is quite corrupt.…

    • 405 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Pointless Pursuit Of Perfection In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown
    • 431 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Pointless Pursuit Of Perfection In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

    The story of Young Goodman Brown delivers a core underlying message that perfection is impossible, and those who expect it are doomed to disappointment, as the author repeatedly shows through the presence of the devilish shadow figure and symbolism of the final meeting. The impossibility of perfection is manifested in the dark figure Goodman Brown meets in the forest. This shadowy figure is introduced as an “elder person as simply clad as a younger, [… with] an indescribable air of one who knew the world” (Hawthorne 2208). The author depicts this evil figure as not only similar to Goodman Brown, but also more educated and elder. After establishing the dark figure’s legitimacy,…

    • 431 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Symbolism And Allegory In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown
    • 507 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Symbolism And Allegory In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

    Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” uses symbolism and allegory to show that people inevitably surrender to the darkness inside of them even if their initial intentions are pure. Hawthorne describes Goodman Brown as a religious man who is drawn towards sin and darkness soon after his marriage. Goodman Brown enters the forest that signifies sin, but resists temptations to join the devil until he finally loses his faith and gives in to evil. Symbolism and allegory are used in the story to help the reader learn about how Brown loses faith in his Puritan society and distrusts the innocence of society.…

    • 507 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Young Goodman Brown vs. Paul
    • 1074 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Young Goodman Brown vs. Paul

    First, we will start with Goodman Brown. He is the main character in Nathaniel Hawthorne 's short story titled "Young Goodman Brown". "Hawthorne could not escape the influence of Puritan society" (McCabe). I think that Hawthorne 's own past is and complications are reveled in his story about Goodman Brown. I believe that Goodman Brown has had a rough past and is trying to reach beyond his past in order to reach heaven. Goodman has some major problems with his wife, Faith, and everyone else in his community. I think that he is seeing everyone as perfect people, but he is having impure thoughts about himself and his past. In order to deal with these problems within himself, he is making up that everyone has this awful bad side. When he goes into the forest, he believes he is talking to the devil with looks much like his grandfather. The devil is feeding him bad thoughts about everyone he knows, even his own father and his wife Faith. Next, I believe that Goodman Brown has had a rough past and in order for him to overcome this within himself…

    • 1074 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Theme Of Innocence In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown
    • 904 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Theme Of Innocence In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

    In the village of Salem there is man, Goodman Brown, who is a Christian. He meets a man in the woods, who eerily seems to be expecting Goodman. When the two encounter a woman in the woods, the man is identified by her to be the Devil himself, and her a witch. He also hears the minister and deacon of his church going to the Devil’s ceremony, along with the witch. Goodman thinks that while everyone else is turning to the Devil, he must stay true to God. As the story progresses more, Goodman hears his wife Faith’s voice at the ceremony, which pushes him over the edge and he uses the Devil’s staff to go to the ceremony. Throughout this story, Hawthorne wraps pieces of Romanticism into the plot. There are elements of nature, solitude, and innocence. They help the overall theme of the story emerge because they build up the setting and path for Goodman’s loss of his innocence.…

    • 904 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Destruction Of Faith In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown
    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Destruction Of Faith In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

    Goodman Brown is a faithful Christian until he begins to go on a journey to find his spiritual path. We are lead to believe that he arranges a meeting with the devil, by the devil later stating that Goodman is late. His wife, Faith, also a metaphor for his relationship with God test him and keeps him back from his journey for a small time.…

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Young Goodman Brown Analysis
    • 769 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Young Goodman Brown Analysis

    Some people read stories and see them all completely different with all completely different meanings. In a way that is correct, they are all different, however; though this analysis it will be shown that“The Lottery” and “Young Goodman Brown” are very similar through different literary elements of fiction. In “The Lottery” and “Young Goodman Brown,” authors Shirley Jackson and Nathaniel Hawthorne employ point of view, setting and conflict to show similarities between these two very different stories.…

    • 769 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Goodman Brown Symbolism
    • 90 Words
    • 1 Page

    Goodman Brown Symbolism

    The story of “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is about a man named Brown who goes into the forest and discovers more then what he bargain for on his journey. The other story “A&P” by John Updlike is about a young boy named Sammy who realizes, that he doesn’t want to work at a grocery store for the rest of his life and to look for something better. Both of these stories have two major symbolisms that affect the story and give it a deeper meaning to these characters.…

    • 90 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Where Are You Going Young Goodman Brown
    • 728 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Where Are You Going Young Goodman Brown

    Oates, Carol J. “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” 40 Short Stories. 4th ed.…

    • 728 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Young Goodman Brown-the Awaren
    • 1267 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Young Goodman Brown-the Awaren

    First of all, Hawthorne uses supernatural events to make the rest of Goodman Brown’s life gloomy. For example, Brown encounters a “black cloud mass” from which the “accents of the townspeople…, men and women, both pious and ungodly…”(56) were emanating. The voices of the townspeople coming from such an evil place lead Brown to believe all of the people he knows are evil. The people he knows well and interacts with on a daily basis are all living an evil lie. Brown’s life becomes gloomy because he can no longer live happily with the people he knows, and he can never trust them as friends or good Christians again. Furthermore, Faith’s pink ribbons “flutter[ing] lightly down through the air”(56) and landing on a branch further move Brown toward a gloomy life. The ribbons belong to his wife, whom he loves and trusts. After the ribbons fall Brown believes Faith is part of the evil of the Devil as well, and he cannot live a happy life with this horrible knowledge. His life becomes gloomy after this event…

    • 1267 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Symbolism And Imagery In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown
    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Symbolism And Imagery In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

    In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown,” the author uses symbolism and imagery to create meaning by developing an atmosphere that utilizes its historical and Bible references. Through Goodman Brown’s journey to and back from the forest, the message that Hawthorne is trying to convey is when faith is undermined, the results can cause one to be feel doubt and cynic towards everyone else.…

    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Goodman Brown Delusion
    • 1097 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Goodman Brown Delusion

    When faced with a realization that everything you have known to be good and true is actually an illusion, is the very moment your world begins to fall apart. Goodman Brown begins a spiritual journey with the purist token of evil as a guide. When he slowly discovers that the world he has known is a deception of his traumatized mind. Goodman Brown resides in the perfect God fearing community, until he discovers that the God they fear may not be the Puritan deity he once knew. Faith is a peculiar name for Goodman Brown’s young wife, given the outcome of his situation. Does Faith exist outside of Goodman’s mind, or is she actually a representation of his faith? I believe these are all characteristics of not…

    • 1097 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Essay Comparing Young Goodman Brown And The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow
    • 617 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Essay Comparing Young Goodman Brown And The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow

    Young Goodman Brown, is a gothic short story written in the setting of Puritan New England, about the struggle a young “Goodman” by the name of Brown and the fight to maintain his innocence’s as he embarks on a journey through the forest with an elder man who symbolizes to be the devil himself. Nathaniel…

    • 617 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Lottery
    • 890 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Lottery

    Young Goodman Brown is a young man who fits his name. He is innocent and believes the community is as harmless as they appear. However his innocence has blinded him to the reality of the dark world. Brown’s family, his wife, and respected members of the community such as Goody Cloyse and Deacon Gookin, have all submitted to the devil. Brown gives in by going to the ceremony, but is permanently scarred and shaken by the experience. He no longer trusts anyone in the community or fully loves his wife again. The beliefs he thought that everyone had were corrupted when he discovered their alliance with the devil. Each of these people followed one another, disregarding their personal morals. This made all the characters seem spineless and unfaithful. This shows Hawthorne’s themes of not all things are as they seem, standing firm in your beliefs, doing what you know to be right and not following the crowd just because of a popular decision.…

    • 890 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics