"Young Goodman Brown"
Please respond to one or more of the following questions taken from http://english.uiowa.edu/courses/boos/questions/hawthorne.htm in a thoughtful paragraph. Or feel free to respond in a meaningful and insightful way to one of the posts of your peers.
a. What is added to the story by the narrator’s comments? b. What seems to be the allegorical significance of the story? Which aspects of the story seem most directly relevant to seventeenth-century New England, and which suggest general themes? c. Which aspects of Puritanism does the tale seem to critique? Which aspects does it seem to replicate or embody? d. Which aspects of the story seem to suggest psychological readings? What kinds of "sin" seem to preoccupy the protagonist and narrator? Are there other aspects of morality/religious attitudes outside the scope of the tale? e. What relationship between imagination and reality is presented by the story? f. Did you like "Young Goodman Brown"? What are ways in which it is well-written? What passages did you most admire? g. Are there aspects of this tale which remind you of "Rip Van Winkle"? What are some contrasts between the two stories, e. g. in their responses to nature? portrayal of women? moral concerns? approach toward history? h. What values might Irving and Hawthorne have shared?
a. What is added to the story by the narrator’s comments? b. What seems to be the allegorical significance of the story? Which aspects of the story seem most directly relevant to seventeenth-century New England, and which suggest general themes? c. Which aspects of Puritanism does the tale seem to critique? Which aspects does it seem to replicate or embody? d. Which aspects of the story seem to suggest psychological readings? What kinds of "sin" seem to preoccupy the protagonist and narrator? Are there other aspects of morality/religious attitudes outside the scope of the tale? e. What relationship between imagination and reality is presented by the story? f. Did you like "Young Goodman Brown"? What are ways in which it is well-written? What passages did you most admire? g. Are there aspects of this tale which remind you of "Rip Van Winkle"? What are some contrasts between the two stories, e. g. in their responses to nature? portrayal of women? moral concerns? approach toward history? h. What values might Irving and Hawthorne have shared?
posted by Jared at 12/07/2006 09:51:00 AM
5 Comments:
I personally enjoyed "Young Goodman Brown". It is well written in the ways that the begginning of it keeps you in mystery of the whole story right away and keeps you reading. Then it continues to get more and more interesting as it goes. One passage I admire was when he says, "The second traveller was about fifty years old, apparently in the same rank of life as Goodman Brown, and bearing a considerable resemblance to him, though perhaps more in expression than features. Still they might have been taken for father and son. And yet, though the elder person was as simply clad as the younger, and as simple in manner too, he had an indescribable air of one who knew the world." I like this passage because the mystery surronding this man makes you wonder if the man is even Goodman Brown when he is older. This passage even shows that the mystery of this man and the whole story itself makes it inticing.
I do not know what kinds of "sin" the narrator was worried about committing. The tale is similar to Rip Van Winkle in that he leaves his wife at home and wanders into wilderness. Then, he sits down and falls asleep in the forest and dreams of witchcraft and Hell. Also, Women (Faith) were portrayed as dependant in that they would wait around on people forever just to comfort their husbands.
c. Which aspects of Puritanism does the tale seem to critique? Which aspects does it seem to replicate or embody?
The aspects of Puritanism that the tale critiqes is who gets in to heaven and the path that you will travle. I think that one of the rules in the Puritanism religion is that you can not judge and not be envious of another person. But Through out this story Goodman Brown juges every one from the minster to an old lady." 'are all whom ye have reverenced from youth. Ye deemed them holier than yourselves, and sharnk form your own sin, contrasting it with their lives of righteousness and prayerful aspiratons heavenward. yet here they are all in my worshipping assembly".(45) the only person that he seems to not jude is Faith. He loves her so he doesnt judge her. THe other thing that the story does is that the forest is the pathway to hell. Useally to get to hell you have to make mistakes in your life, but here, it was a path in the forest. THings that is shows that same as the puritains is that the go to church and teach catechism. They fall in love with one person and it seems that it is a love that is passionate and true. The term is not used lightly.Unlike the crucible goodybrown doesn't sleep with anoter person, he follows the religon and it seems like a lot of other people ddo too becasue he was always comparing himself to them, jugding the two.
Goodman Brown expresses what I believe as the Puritan relationship between good and evil. Throughout this tale, there are many prominent forms of religious motifs that add meaning to the text. As Cotoole4 put it, his relation to a woman known as Faith I believe metaphorically symbolized his devotion to his religion. As he feels he looses Faith in the end, he also looses his ability to take importance out of his religious services and teachings. Also it seems that illusions of Hell are represented in the text as well, in expression to the witchery and the dark figures represent the devil and his followers. But one important pun that takes place in the text is when he mentions to the figure in the night that he was late because, “Faith kept me back a while,” which can either depict that his wife, Faith, kept him from his nightly ventures, or that his faith in religion kept him from seeing the horrible events that he is bestowed upon in the evening.
In the story “Young Goodman Brown” I thought that it was ironic that the staff that the traveler had looked liked a serpent. Goodman Brown said, “But the only thing about him that could be fixed upon as remarkable was his staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent.” This reminded me of the serpent in the story of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve listened to the serpent because they wanted to gain knowledge. The serpent ended up leading them away from God and towards the devil. In “Young Goodman Brown” the traveler touches Goody Cloyse with the staff and she screams, “The devil!” Goody Cloyse was the women who had taught Brown his catechism, so he considered her to be holy and to still have faith. The staff ends up leading Goodman Brown through the forest and to the devil’s ceremony where his faith is destroyed. In the end of the story Goodman Brown has gained new knowledge but is not happy with it, just as Adam and Eve had.
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