...Young Goodman Brown Analysis Prompt I The ironically named “Young Goodman Brown” is possibly the most ironic character in the entire parable. His name and “title” give the illusion that he is a good, righteous, and pure member of society who cannot be shaken from his seemingly correct beliefs. In this way, Brown presents himself to his wife and the rest of society. Before leaving for his ominous journey, Brown consoles his wife by saying, “Say thy prayers, dear Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee.” (pg 383) The false proscenium Brown has so carefully constructed dictates that he must be strong and unwavering, more concerned for his wife’s well being than his own, which, as we see later, is not the case. When in the...
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...We then seek our desires in an attempt to somehow feel complete. Psychoanalytic criticism is a theory which argues that literary texts are much like our dreams in the sense that they express the undisclosed unconscious desires of the author and that a literary work is little more than a manifestation of the author's own neuroses. However, psychoanalytic criticism does not concern itself with what the author intended but rather what the author never intended. By applying Lacan’s model of the human pysche to Nathaniel Hawethorne’s “Young Goodman Brown," we can see how Young Goodman Brown transitions through Lacan’s three orders. As Brown makes these transitions we ultimately realize that the “fellow-traveler” accompanying Brown is essentially a reflection of himself as the two come together to make a dynamic whole as opposed to two binary opposites. We first meet Young Goodman Brown while he is in the “imaginary order;” joyful and united with his young wife, Faith. Up to this point it would appear that he has relied on his perceived images of concepts and his community as a way to interpret his world. He had a “sweet, pretty wife,” whom he advised that by...
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...and “Young Goodman Brown” both main characters have the truth revealed to them. What these two characters do with that knowledge however, are on exact opposites of the spectrum. So who made the right decision? When shaken with an epiphany about the world around you, do you act on it or do you act as if you were never enlightened at all? And why did these two people; both in similar situations, react to their discovery so differently? In both stories, Goodman Brown and the narrator of “Raj Bohemian” learn that the people they surround themselves with are fake. For Goodman Brown, his whole town is full of Satanists; in the Narrator case, all his friends are salesmen of trends. Understanding how much either Young Goodman Brown or the Narrator actually lost is essential in understanding why they responded how they did. Young Goodman Brown was a married man; the narrator was not. I feel as if just this detail can begin to unravel the mysteries as to why these two men acted as they did. Young Goodman Brown cared deeply for his wife. He said “Poor little Faith! . . . What a wretch am I to leave her on such an errand!” and also “there is my wife, Faith. It would break her dear little heart; and I’d rather break my own.” What these quotes show is just how deeply Young Goodman Brown cares about his wife. What this means is that when Goodman Brown saw his beloved wife at the “witch-meeting”, he lost far more than the narrator of “Raj Bohemian” did. His wife lost her innocence in Young Goodman...
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...FICTION ESSAY WRITING STYLE USED: APA OUTLINE I. THESIS: A thorough analysis of Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” reveals that different literary elements, such as tone and setting, are used to convey the characters’ arrival at dark, sinister places. II. INTRODUCTION III. SHIRLEY JACKSON’S “THE LOTTERY” A. Setting the tone: Peaceful and relaxing B. Irony: Even though the mood is relaxing, there is a premonition of something bad to come C. Ending: The ending is implied IV. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE’S “YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN” D. Setting the tone: feeling of something evil to come E. Symbolism i. Faith – the wife and commitment to Jesus ii. Venture in to the forest – Journey of life iii. Traveler’s staff – Satan in the Garden of Eden F. Ending: Was it real or was it a dream? V. CONCLUSION A thorough analysis of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” reveals that different literary elements, such as tone and setting, are used to convey the characters’ arrival at dark, sinister places. Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” are two short stories that use completely opposite ways to get to the same destination: a dark, sinister place. Both stories are very dark, and almost morbid, but one story keeps the reader oblivious to the tragic event that is being set up, while the other story lays it...
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...The Most Dangerous Game vs. Young Goodman Brown In two of the most well-known short stories, “The Most Dangerous Game” and “Young Goodman Brown”, there are ironic similarities portraying evil between their settings, characterization, and plot. I. There happen to be different settings in both of the short stories but both of the settings adapt well with their plots. a. In the short story, “The Most Dangerous Game” the setting takes place in the early 1920’s after the First World War on a small tropical island somewhere in the Caribbean, known as Ship-Trap Island by the sailors. b. Whereas, in the short story, “Young Goodman Brown” the story is set in the late seventeenth century in Salem, a small town northeast of Boston in Massachusetts around the time of the Salem witch trials. II. The characters in both of these short stories have close similarities to each other as they both demonstrate good and evil traits, which help the plot flow. a. The main characters in “The Most Dangerous Game” are Sanger Rainsford, General Zaroff, Whitney, and Ivan. b. The main characters in the story “Young Goodman Brown” are Goodman Brown, Faith, The Old Man/Devil Figure, The Minister, Goody Cloyse, and Deakon Gookin. III. The plot of the short stories, although they are different, both exhibit evil conflicts that develop throughout the story. a. The plot in “The Most Dangerous Game” is about hunting. b. In the plot of “Young Goodman Brown” Goodman Brown has to leave one night but...
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...In contrasting Young Goodman Brown with “Girl” we can make a contrast in two different types of culture. Goodman Brown obviously has his culture developed around his Puritan beliefs whereas the Mother appears to have a unique culture from a certain time and location as well. Goodman Brown’s Puritan faith however proves to be quite shaky; anyone can change his mind as revealed by his impressionist ways when encountering the devil. It also can be the case that the Puritan faith may have not always been pure; this is revealed when the Devil takes note that he was present when Goodman Brown’s father and forbearers whipped Quakers and destroyed Indian villages, shedding light on the dark past of the Puritan ways. In Girl, the culture is developed...
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...Fiction Essay: Comparison of Setting ENGL 100 Jonathan Jones February 2, 2015 Thesis – Can two completely different stories have similarities in their setting and how the setting was used to support the story? I. Introduction – YGB and The Destructors took place during different time periods and in completely different locations. (Young Goodman Brown (YGB) – Nathanial Hawthorne published 1835, setting 17th century. The Destructors – Graham Greene published 1954 – setting mid 1950s) a. Different time period b. Different country c. Different time of day II. Why does the setting matter? d. Include character impact. e. The setting in both stories makes them believable III. Both stories rely on their settings to support the plot f. YGB – The setting creates a dark atmosphere. Allows the readier to believe there is witch craft happening and the devil is involved g. The Destructors – The setting creates a desolate location, much of a city after war time. The entire plot is based on symbolism and would not be able to occur if the town wasn’t recovering from war. The whole block was bombed, except the one house that the story is about. IV. Conclusion – both stories took place during different era’s, in different countries and had different conflicts. Similarly, the setting of each supported the plot that showcased conflicts true to the time period. Both stories were written by authors that were from the area....
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...Miller My two favorite short stories are “The Lottery and “Young Goodman Brown”. Making a decision which is better will be a tough choice. Although both stories are similar in its theme, it is transported differently in each story. The stories display different character analysis and word choice. I. My favorite pastime is reading short stories. a. Two stories I can read repeatedly. i. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. ii. “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. b. The authors battle with depression in their lives. i. Shirley Jackson was stricken server depression from time to time. ii. Nathaniel Hawthorne was depressed because of his ill health and the toll of the Civil War. II. Scenery and characters of “The Lottery” and Young Goodman Brown. a. Towns identified as small villages. i. “The Lottery” was a small village with no name. 1. The story gives a population of 300 people living there ii. “Young Goodman Brown” story took place in a small village called Salem. b. The wives in the story played contrast characters. i. Tessie Hutchinson was a main character that went through climax and denouement. ii. Faith Brown played somewhat of a static character. c. The husbands were portrayed differently in the stories. i. Bill Hutchinson persona was very multi-dimensional ii. Goodman Brown played the main character that was a foil to Ms. Hutchinson. III. How are we to use the themes of these stories? a. Analyzing...
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...Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” and Thomas Wolfe’s “The Child by Tiger” show many similarities in each stories structure. Even though they were written in different time periods as well as different cultures, there is a unity in their conflicts, themes, and author’s purpose. Good and evil both exist in the world. Humans are good natured, but occasionally, evil is known to show up. Experiencing something tragic for the first time can be confusing and traumatizing. Two stories that illustrate young men dealing with evil are Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” and Thomas Wolfe’s “The Child by Tiger.” The protagonists of each story, Brown and Spangler, deal with the evils of this world but in different ways. Brown lets the evil take over his faith and beliefs while Spangler comes to an understanding that human beings can be both good and evil. "Young Goodman Brown," is a short-story of tragedy and personal loss. Hawthorne reveals the power of betrayal and the unsurmountable fear of evil. In this case, the source of these is the very foundation of a young man's faith. "Young Goodman Brown" is both memorable and perplexing because it is partially the story of Hawthorne's own self-discovery and a strong condemnation of the rigid fundamentalist system of belief that forms the core values of America to this very day. Unlike Washington Irving's earlier thriller, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," where the terror is ghostly and headless, Hawthorne unveils the murky dark...
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...Hawthorne’s work. On a personal level, Poe often disagreed with how often Hawthorne used allegory. As a literary element that many people use, Poe was not a fan. He once stated that: “I allude to the strain of allegory which completely overwhelms the greater number of his subjects, and which in some measure interferes with the direct conduct of absolutely all.” (Poe, 1847) It seems as though Poe regarded Hawthorne’s work as works of allegory. To say that this was the only literary element he employed, however, would be false. Throughout history, authors have endeavoured to master other forms of literary elements, to become the master of those elements, and equal to none in them. By comparing “The Cask of Amontillado” with “Young Goodman Brown”, is to study two masters, at odds with their specific forms of writing, but each a master in his own right. Each story shows how two people that can be so far apart on a scale, can use the same literary elements in similar and different ways without compromising their work as a whole. Foreshadowing Foreshadowing is vital in the world of literature. Foreshadowing is always about being subtle. How can an author slip in a clue or help build a story to a dramatic, yet unforeseen conclusion? Foreshadowing in the hands of a master seems to be a piece of elegance and can be so subtle that the reader wonders how he or she missed...
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...Title: The Problem of Faith in 'Young Goodman Brown' Author(s): Leo B. Levy Publication Details: JEGP: Journal of English and Germanic Philology 74.3 (July 1975): p375-387. Source: Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Ed. Juliet Byington. Vol. 95. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. p375-387. From Literature Resource Center. Document Type: Critical essay Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group, COPYRIGHT 2007 Gale, Cengage Learning [In the following essay, Levy examines Faith as a character, an allegorical figure, and a symbol.] Few of Hawthorne's tales have elicited a wider range of interpretations than “Young Goodman Brown.” The critics have been victimized by the notorious ambiguity of a tale composed of a mixture of allegory and the psychological analysis of consciousness. Many of them find the key to its meaning in a neurotic predisposition to evil; one goes so far as to compare Goodman Brown to Henry James's governess in The Turn of the Screw [Darrel Abel, in “Black Glove and Pink Ribbon: Hawthorne's Metonymic Symbols,” in NEQ 42, 1969]. The psychological aspect is undeniably important, since we cannot be certain whether “Young Goodman Brown” is a dream-allegory that takes place in the mind and imagination of the protagonist, an allegory with fixed referents in the external world, or a combination of these that eludes our ordinary understanding of the genre itself. The story is all three: a dream vision, a conventional allegory, and finally an inquiry into the problem of faith...
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...Critical Reading 1. Preview. Look “around” the text before you start reading. ... 2. Annotate. Annotating puts you actively and immediately in a "dialogue” with an author and the issues and ideas you encounter in a written text. ... 3. Outline, Summarize, and Analyze. ... 4. Look for repetitions and patterns. ... 5. Contextualize. ... 6. Compare and Contrast. When you write about literature . . . Some Tips for Academic Writers Sentence Style 1. Use simple sentences as rubrics (pointers). 2. Use compound sentences to suggest balance and to present pairs of ideas of equal value. 3. Use complex sentence to emphasize the most important ideas and to subordinate less important ideas. 4. Avoid "empty" sentence frames that say little or restate the obvious. 5. Use present tense when referencing details in a literary work except for passages written in the past tense. 6. Incorporate short, key quoted phrases into analytical sentences. 7. Avoid the use of such words and phrases as "you" and "the reader" that often lead to wordiness. 8. Avoid the phrase, "In conclusion," when opening the concluding paragraph. 9. Avoid gratuitous complements and superlatives. Paragraph Development 1. Use Pattern 1 paragraph frames for most paragraphs in the body of academic essays. 2. Begin body paragraphs with claims as topic sentences that repeat key concepts from the thesis sentence. 3. Always introduce the speaker, context, and/or significance of block quotations. 4. Always...
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...Assignment 4 12.27.2012 Short Story Analysis When people live in a sheltered environment with a paved driveway and freshly mowed lawn, they forget that they share the world with others, who live in a much darker environment. Their environment lacks much more than paved driveways and freshly mowed lawns. Most of these people are even deprived of the basic needs like a safe community, peace or their sanity. The authors of Young Goodman Brown, The Red Convertible, The Lone Ranger and Sonny’s Blues expose us to an obscure society; one where people find themselves in bleak situations. Life for these people is just a big question mark; a question that doesn’t have a straightforward answer. Many a times, authors hit the touchy topic of God’s existence in their work. Reflected by his puritan heritage, Nathanial Hawthorne wrote about faith, personal salvation and morality in his short-story “Young Goodman Brown”. The main character, Goodman Brown, has an internal battle with his faith throughout the story where he finds himself questioning the very existence of a higher power. Ultimately the bigger question in this story is one that many people ask themselves when they are faced with tough times; Does God really exist? Or is He a mere creation by society to keep face and hide behind their lies? Goodman Brown embarks on a journey against his own will. The author describes this an “evil” journey where Goodman Brown wants to turn back on many occasions but his elderly companion...
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...her breath that she as “Free,” and she kept whispering “Free! Body and soul free!” It was like she was drinking in a elixir of life while the window was open. When she arose, she walked out her room and downstairs to see someone opening up the door, and there stood Spann 2 her husband. When Richards went to reach for Mrs. Mallard, he was too late. The doctors said “she had died of heart disease- of joy that kills.” (Barnet 23-24) In the story of “Young Goodman Brown,” Goodman Brown is not only taking an eternal journey but he is also taking an internal journey as well. a journey for one night, as begins his quest down the dark gloomy road in the forest. His internal journey starts when he’s in the forest and begins to look around, afraid of what might be behind each tree, thinking that there might be Indians or even the devil himself lurking there. He soon comes across a man in the road who greets him as if he had been waiting for him. The man offers Goodman Brown the staff that he is holding, saying that...
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...make perfect sense. Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism refers to literary criticism or literary theory which, in method, concept, or form, is influenced by the tradition of psychoanalysis begun by Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalytic literary criticism is a very common method of analyzing stories such as The White Heron by Sarah Orne Jewett, Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allen Poe. Sylvia, a shy girl, who is rather naive and innocent. For most of her life has been sheltered from the atrocities of life. Being shielded from the outside world she hasn’t come to the conclusion that people can be bad. However this changes when a handsome and mysterious stranger wanders in her area. At first she intimidated by the man but is very eager to assist the man and wants to make a good impression. When finding the heron true changes begin to form in Sylvia. In sparing the heron she is more confident in her decision and assertive, she is willing ignore a person’s approval in order to preserve a beautiful part of nature. The white heron can represent Sylvia’s purity or innocence. According to psychosexual analysis the tree in which Sylvia climbs can be a phallic symbol for the ornithologist. While going through the forest with the ornithologist, he takes the lead although Sylvia is familiar with the terrain,...
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