Young Goodman Brown And Good Country People Essay

â€Å"Young Goodman Brown† and â€Å"Good Country People† are short stories written a little more than 100 years apart by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Flannery O’Connor respectively, and they both follow similar themes about religion and faith in a parallel sense. â€Å"Young Goodman Brown† follows the story of a devout Puritan losing his faith in God and humanity through a journey in the woods. While â€Å"Good Country People† follows the story of an amputee woman who is â€Å"tricked† by a fake Bible salesman into going out with him as she is seduced by his Christian principles. Both â€Å"Young Goodman Brown† and â€Å"Good Country People† depict a story of faith but in reciprocal directions. â€Å"Young Goodman Brown† and â€Å"Good Country People† argue how one’s faith and identity can so easily be weakened and undermined by outside influences and temptations using techniques and views typical of Romanticism and Southern Gothic respectively. â€Å"Young Goodman Brown† tells the story of Goodman Brown. Goodman Brown begins the story about to leave home and his Puritan Wife Faith to go on a journey that he felt guilty with to begin with. Despite his initial guilt, he leaves home a devout Puritan and sound in his beliefs. Throughout the story, Goodman Brown digresses as a man and loses his faith over the course of events of the story. On his journey, Brown meets a man who first tries to tempt him to go with him to a meeting in the forest. The man turns out to be the devil. Before parting ways, the devil gives Brown a staffShow MoreRelatedâ€Å"a Rose for Emily, † â€Å"Young Goodman Brown† and â€Å"Good Country People, †1823 Words   |  8 PagesIsolation: Loneliness from Society The time moves on for all people. If we cannot come to terms with that, bad things can happen. A short story, A Rose for Emil, by William Faulkner, was first published on April 30, 1930. William Cuthbert Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, on September 25, 1897. He is one of the greatest writers in America and obtained Nobel Prize laureate. As he grew up in New Albany, Mississippi, the Southern society influenced to him. Through his works such aRead MoreThe Dichotomy of Self Reliance and Conformity1169 Words   |  5 PagesHawthorne’s dramatically thematic and ambiguous short story, â€Å"Young Goodman Brown†, as well as Ralph Waldo Emerson’s intriguingly influential and uplifting essay, â€Å"Self-Reliance†. Hawthorne’s writing aspires to implicate theories and themes about the reality of the world we live in and to illustrate our individual limitations through the art of symbolism and irony. Emerson uses a unique approach in his writing, endeavoring to inspire people to appreciate the world they live in, and to have faith andRead MoreCriticism And Symbolism In Young Goodman Brown By Nathaniel Hawthorne1238 Words   |  5 PagesPuritans were a group of people who were discontent with the Church of England and worked towards a more purified side of religious beliefs, morals and society. In a 3rd person point of view their attempt for moral righteousness was a fail ure, as they were extremists who had no tolerance to those who didn’t follow their beliefs. Nathaniel Hawthorne was raised in New England, a part of a country where Puritan Heritage was strong. Moreover, his ancestors were involved in the infamous Salem Witch TrialsRead MoreEssay on The Ambiguity in Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown1587 Words   |  7 PagesThe Ambiguity in â€Å"Young Goodman Brown†      Ã‚  Ã‚     The literary critics agree that there is considerable ambiguity in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s â€Å"Young Goodman Brown.† This essay intends to illustrate the previous statement and to analyze the cause of this ambiguity.    Henry James in Hawthorne, when discussing â€Å"Young Goodman Brown† comments on how imaginative it is, then mentions how allegorical Hawthorne is, and how allegory should be expressed clearly:    I frankly confess that I haveRead MoreAnalysis Of James Joyce s Araby 1336 Words   |  6 Pagesshort story centering on an Irish adolescence boy emerging from boyhood fanaticizing into the harsh realities of everyday life in his country. It undergoes through the phases of self-discovery through a coming of age. It takes place in Dublin in 1894 when it was under British rule. The boy in the story is strongly correlated with the author James Joyce. Young Goodman Brown was another story in which the ending results on a grand epiphany. It was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, taking place in Salem duringRead More Ambiguity in Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown Essay1743 Words   |  7 PagesAmbiguity in â€Å"Young Goodman Brown†Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚         There is no end to the ambiguity in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s â€Å"Young Goodman Brown†; this essay hopes to explore this problem.    Peter Conn in â€Å"Finding a Voice in an New Nation† makes a statement regarding Hawthorne’s ambiguity:      Almost all of Hawthorne’s finest stories are remote in time or place. The glare of contemporary reality immobillized his imagination. He required shadows and half-light, and he sought a nervous equilibriumRead MoreMy Psychoanalytic Views of Two Short Stories1454 Words   |  6 Pagescriticism 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 firstRead MoreFlannery O Connor s Good Country People935 Words   |  4 PagesFlannery O Connor s Good Country People and Nathaniel Hawthorne s Young Goodman Brown explore the nature and range of religious hypocrisy congruently. Comparably O Connor s theme focuses on the eclipsed personalities one can have, where Hawthorne s short story pushes the meaning that everyone is secretly corrupt in their own way. While each tale marches to its own tune, the overlap is prominent; both authors strive to make a clear stance that the moral standing of an individual is onlyRead More The Theme of Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown Essay2278 Words   |  10 PagesThe Theme of Young Goodman Br own      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   This essay intends to develop an interpretation of the theme of â€Å"Young Goodman Brown†.    To come by a clear notion of the theme of   â€Å"Young Goodman Brown† is no easy task, thanks to the confusing style of the author. As A.N. Kaul says in the â€Å"Introduction† to Hawthorne – A Collection of Critical Essays:    Because Hawthorne was much given to evasions, mystifications, and prevarications of various sorts, because he repeatedly confusesRead MoreBrowns Fall Essay1998 Words   |  8 Pagesenhance the theme of their works. One author in particular is Nathaniel Hawthorne. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote â€Å"Young Goodman Brown† in 1835. His time period influenced the theme of his work. The theme Hawthorne chose was the weakness of public morality. In â€Å"Young Goodman Brown† Hawthorne shows this theme through the perspective of a Puritan man, Goodman Brown. In the story Hawthorne shows that Goodman Brown’s religious convictions are rooted in his belief that those around him are also religious. This kind