Thursday, November 5, 2009
Young Goodman Brown
From the start it is evident that this story was written by none other than Nathaniel Hawthorne. It resembled so much The Crucible, also written by Hawthorne. The theme was the same about salem, witches, satin rituals and witches in clearings. This story was about a man who goes on a journey in the night despite the protest from his wife Faith. After leaving her he feels guilty and decides to turn back to her, however he spots a man in the forest and is lured to him. The man who is evidently evil takes him further into the forest despite Goodman's wanting to turn back. The evil man takes Goodman further into the forest after revealing to him that he knew his father and grandfather before him. He than shows him a ritual taking place in the clearing, where Goodman is devastated to find his wife and people he respects. Failing to stop them from participating Goodman turns back and returns to Salem the next day. He looks at everyone in Salem with disgust and contempt. He becomes a loner and soon dies leaving no one devastated. I found the story to be sad because of what happened to Goodman Brown at the end however at the same time I thought it was so interesting. This genre of witches and satin is very interesting.
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Try to probe beyond summary. See my blog post. The fact that the Devil claims to have known Brown's ancestors has several implications that Brown seems unable/unwilling to comprehend, but which may lead us to the deeper coinflicts of the story, which involve Brown himself, rather than the world outside Brown; has a lot to do with his state of mind at the end... see my blog post. This dialogue with the devil would be interesting to explore in more detail--look for other evidence that suggests this is an internal dialogue (within the protagonist) rather than between two separate interlocutors
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