Young Goodman Brown Shadow and Illuminations of Evil
April 2, 2014
Mrs. Schacht English Comp. 2
“Young Goodman Brown”
Shadows and Illuminations of Evil
“Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a story filled with mystery and symbolical meaning. Shadows and Illuminations create the dramatic downfall of the main character leading him into a 360 degree transition from a normal and happy life to a bitter and angered one. Young Goodman Brown experiences the illuminations brought into existence by dark shadows in the woods producing an abstract scheme between the real and unreal. Shadows are the dark area or shape produced by a body coming between rays of light and a surface while on the other hand illuminations are bodies of light. These two terms contribute to the creation of hallucinations which are the experiences involving the apparent perception of something not present. Evil is a profound immorality, wickedness, and depravity, referred as a supernatural force. Donald D. Hoffman’s allegations in his book Visual Intelligence: How We Create what We See suggests that many times our eyes betray us into thinking that something is there or that something exists in a different form when in reality it might not even be half of what our eyes perceive it to be. He sets an example by illustrating a ripple figure that is drawn on a piece of paper therefore it is in 2D, although our eyes can interpret it as a 3D figure, something that we could actually touch with our hands and hold. His findings also assume that when our vision is exposed to a certain manipulating figure after a while we start to believe and imagine far beyond from what we essentially though or actually is there, proceeding to the possible occurring event of a hallucination. Our mind can play many tricks on us to the point of losing judgment and our touch with reality, through our visual system we can fabricate and endow certain
Mrs. Schacht English Comp. 2
“Young Goodman Brown”
Shadows and Illuminations of Evil
“Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a story filled with mystery and symbolical meaning. Shadows and Illuminations create the dramatic downfall of the main character leading him into a 360 degree transition from a normal and happy life to a bitter and angered one. Young Goodman Brown experiences the illuminations brought into existence by dark shadows in the woods producing an abstract scheme between the real and unreal. Shadows are the dark area or shape produced by a body coming between rays of light and a surface while on the other hand illuminations are bodies of light. These two terms contribute to the creation of hallucinations which are the experiences involving the apparent perception of something not present. Evil is a profound immorality, wickedness, and depravity, referred as a supernatural force. Donald D. Hoffman’s allegations in his book Visual Intelligence: How We Create what We See suggests that many times our eyes betray us into thinking that something is there or that something exists in a different form when in reality it might not even be half of what our eyes perceive it to be. He sets an example by illustrating a ripple figure that is drawn on a piece of paper therefore it is in 2D, although our eyes can interpret it as a 3D figure, something that we could actually touch with our hands and hold. His findings also assume that when our vision is exposed to a certain manipulating figure after a while we start to believe and imagine far beyond from what we essentially though or actually is there, proceeding to the possible occurring event of a hallucination. Our mind can play many tricks on us to the point of losing judgment and our touch with reality, through our visual system we can fabricate and endow certain