How Young Goodman Brown Became Old Badman Brown Essay -- essays resear

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a nineteenth-century American generator of the Ro small-armtic Movement. born(p) in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1804, he was star of those rare writers who drew precise acclaim during his lifetime. Hawthorne used Salem as a setting for roughly of his stories, such as The Scarlet Letter, The Blithedale Romance, and Young Goodman Brown. Today, readers still treasure Hawthornes work for its storytelling qualities and for the moral and theological questions it raises. Nathaniel Hawthornes work is typically fraught with symbolizationism, often of it deriving from his Puritan ancestry relatives of his were judges in the Salem witchcraft trials. Young Goodman Brown is an allegory whose characters play a major purpose in conveying the reoccurring guinea pig of sin and retribution. The short story represents one mans journeying to leave his cartel, home, and security temporarily behind to take a walk with the devil into a dark forest. The forest is a symbol o f the test of strength, courage, and endurance. Aside from Young Goodman Brown, forests carrying a negative or contend con nonation guide been featured in other stories. For example, in the kin tale The Three Bears, Goldilocks encounters the cottage of the three bears in a forest in Hansel and Gretel, the childrens father takes them off into the forest to abandon them and they have to find their way back out in Red horseback riding Hood, the little girl has to travel through the forest to her grandmothers house. There has eer been an association between forests and evil because of its dark and gloomy spirit. The forest go on goes on to represent evil in Young Goodman Brown because opinion asks Goodman Brown not to go into the forest on his mysterious errand. What is his errand? Hawthorne never says, but clearly Goodman Brown has planned for it. He knows that the aim of his journey is less than wholesome, for he feels guilty at leaving Faith on such an errand (1264). Despite Faiths protest, Brown goes on his quest anyway. Thus, faith was not fitted to achieve the desired outcome. This means his faith tried least(prenominal) and got the least, for it was apparently weak. When faith is weak, not only it cannot control desires, but to a fault it needs protection, for it could be lost at any time. That was what made faith beg Brown to put off his journey and stay with her th... ...expresses the theme of sin and retribution. Goodman Browns life was destroyed because of his inability to search this truth and live with it. The story, which may have been a dream, planted the reservoir of doubt in Browns mind, which consequently cut him off from his fellow man and leaves him alone and depressed. His life ends alone and miserable because he was never able to look at himself and realize that what he believed were everyone elses faults were his as well. Hawthorne was a writer way ahead of his time. His stories have been a testament to the timeless nature of hi s style. Although written by a Puritan, many of his stories challenge all of that which is puritan. In its day, this story raised controversy because of the risqu subject matter. Today, people can debate on the Disney channel and see adultery and satanic rituals. Society has been callused by the sands of time. Works CitedThe Bible. 2nd ed. New York Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1953.Martin, Terence. Young Goodman Brown. Nathaniel Hawthorne. inaugural ed. New York Twayne P, 1965. 90-99.Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Young Goodman Brown. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed, Nina Baym. 6th ed. 2003 1263-1272.