The Nature Of Evil In Young Goodman free essay sample

Brown Essay, Research Paper The Nature of Evil in Young Goodman Brown In Young Goodman Brown, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the narrative of a adult male and his find of immorality. Hawthorne? s primary concern is with evil and how it affects Young Goodman Brown. Through the usage of tone and scene, Hawthorne portrays the nature of immorality and the psychological effects it can hold on adult male. He shows how detecting the being of evil brings Brown to see the universe in a misanthropic manner. Brown learns the nature of immorality and, hence, feels surrounded by its presence invariably. Hawthorne creates a serious and somber tone throughout much of the narrative. From the start, the audience gets a sense that Brown will travel through relentless torment from the diabolic alien. His enunciation in the gap paragraphs is a good index of this. He uses words such as? melancholy? , ? immorality? , ? drab? , and? sculpt? to arouse a certain temper in the reader. We will write a custom essay sample on The Nature Of Evil In Young Goodman or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page There is small alleviation from this earnestness that would propose that Hawthorne? s attitude about the narrative be hopeful. Brown? s attitude and actions portray a negative position of Salem and its people. He ponders the lip service of the town every bit good as that of the Puritans. He examines the possibility that immorality and corruptness exist in a town that is purportedly characterized by piousness and devout religion. The narrative is set in seventeenth-century Salem, a clip and topographic point where wickedness and immorality were greatly analyzed and feared. The townsfolk, in their Puritan beliefs, were obsessed with the nature of wickedness and with happening ways to be rid of it wholly through purification of the psyche. At times, people were thought to be possessed by the Satan and to pattern witchery. As penalty for these offenses, some were subjected to agonizing Acts of the Apostless or even atrocious deceases. Therefore, Hawthorne? s pick of scene is instrumental in the development of subject. He uses contrast as a agency to portray the small town as good and the wood as bad. This adds significance to the fact that Brown begins his journey in the town and returns so to the wood. The usage of imagination captures the visual aspect of the wood every bit good as imparting a sense of predicting towards the impending immorality. Hawthorne says of Brown, ? He had taken a drab route, darkened by the gloomiest trees of the forest? It was all every bit lonely as it could be? ( 2208 ) . Immediately following this description, Brown speculates that he may non be entirely in the wood. He fears that there may be a? diabolic Indian? or? the Satan himself? in his presence ( 2208 ) . He is disturbed by the fact that he? knows non who may be concealed by the countless short pantss and the thick boughs overhead ; so that with alone footfalls he may yet be go throughing through an unobserved battalion? ( 2208 ) . This suggests to the reader that he is no longer experiencing the comfort and s afety he felt at place and is leery of what lies in front. Brown is fearful of his mission even before go forthing. However, in go forthing the small town, he leaves spiritual order, the acquaintance of the scenery, and his darling Faith. Upon come ining the wood, he becomes victim to the possibility of the find and effects of immorality. In fact, it is in the forest where immorality manifests itself to him in the signifier of an older adult male of the same frock and category as Brown. It is this experience which finally affects his mentality of the universe. Taken at a actual degree, the narrative is about a adult male who goes on a journey to the wood and brushs assorted unusual state of affairss. However, the storyteller is working on two degrees. There are objects and characters in the narrative which are representative of something else. For case, Brown? s married woman, Faith, represents spiritual religion. She besides exemplifies what it means to be a good adult female and married woman. He worries that Faith? s dreams are warnings although she is his lone justification for doing the evil journey. She is his hope for an? first-class hereafter? . Brown describes her as, ? blessed angel on Earth? and promises that after this one dark, he will, ? cleaving to her skirts and follow her to heaven? ( 2207 ) . When Brown, in arrant desperation, cries out, ? My Faith is gone, ? ( 2212 ) he refers non merely to his married woman but besides his religion in God. He besides alludes to his married woman Faith as his religious religion when he t ells the alien, ? Faith kept me back awhile? ( 2208 ) . Literally, he means that he arrived tardily as a consequence of the conversation with his married woman. However, because we know the deductions of Hawthorne? s tone, we realize he was kept back by something more. We can presume that it is because deep down, perchance through a surfacing of his unconscious, he knows that he is non get downing a harmless journey. Brown is an everyman. Therefore, his journey is one many people have traveled in the yesteryear and will go in the hereafter. Hawthorne is proposing that everyone at some point experiences the battle between good and evil within themselves. As members of today? s society, we are immersed in the evil ways of adult male at an early age. All we must make is watch the eventide intelligence one dark to experience bewildered at the ceaseless committedness of evil workss. In a sense, Brown? s experience in the wood is our world, what we are faced with mundane. His sodium? ve strong belief that immorality can be controlled can merely boom in an idealistic environment. Because he has seen that environment ( or been deceived into believing he has ) , the find of evil proves even more annihilating. However, Hawthorne shows the complexness of the human experience with what is good and what is corrupt. Salem symbolizes order and the regulations that its dwellers are guided by. It is an highly spiritual town where error is non tolerated. On the other manus, the wood, where Brown ventures, is seen as evil and full of evildoers. As he travels further into the forests, he becomes cognizant of the copiousness of evildoers within the community. Like the forest, the baleful alien he encounters every bit good as his staff, represent immorality. The description of the staff is much like that which we associate with the Satan. The staff, ? bore the similitude of a great black serpent, so oddly wrought that it might about be seen to writhe and writhe itself like a life snake? ( 2208 ) . On more than one juncture, the alien offers it to Brown for support and as encouragement to prosecute the walk. His familiarity says? You will believe better of this? and when you feel like traveling once more, here is my staff to assist you along? ( 2211 ) . Brown knows the alien is the Satan and the staff wi ll merely take him to evil. The fact that he has this cognition suggests that he is fighting with the enticement of immorality. These symbols interacting together along with the secret plan set the phase for Brown to face this immorality. Brown begins his journey about enthusiastically and with great religion. This religion is non merely in God but besides in his married woman, the town, and his full life style. He genuinely believes in the Puritan manner and its ability to steer him along the righteous way. The conversation between Brown and Faith as he is go forthing makes one think that he really believes that he will travel on the journey and return to happen things merely as they were earlier. He is right in his premise that the town and the people in it do non alter ; nevertheless, he fails to see the thought that his perceptual experience of them may alter, which it surely does. Upon come ining the forest, it does non take long for the alien to entice Brown in deeper causation him to abandon his former strong beliefs. He experiences a province of confusion steering his head in two different waies. In one sense, he feels the apprehension of his go oning journey. At this clip, he refuses to travel any further. He says to the alien, ? my head is made up. Not another measure will I stir on this errand? ( 2211 ) . However, a more powerful force than his ain self-control compels him to travel forth. Brown begins to theorize about the thought that many other honest people have walked the same way when the figure tells him that he knew his male parent and gramps. Brown responds to the accusals that his ascendants were evil without much averment bespeaking that he does hold uncertainties. What makes it even more amazing for Brown is that these evildoers are people he recognizes to be pious and solid figures in the community. Upon detecting the Deacon and curate? s presence, he feels? overburdened with the heavy illness of his bosom? ( 2211 ) . It is so when he has uncertainties of Eden? s being at all. Yet, he still vows to? stand house against the Satan? ( 2212 ) . He is still slightly in incredulity at seeing Goody Cloyse, the adult female who taught him catechism. However, after hearing Faith? s voice amidst the other evildoers, he finally deserts his belief in the being of good raw. From this point on, he feels a sickening yet obliging force pressing him on to the evil assemblage with those he describes as? grave and dark-clad company? ( 2213 ) . Whether his experience in the wood is existent or a dream, the consequence it has on him is damaging to his religious development. The figure welcomes the community stating, ? Depending upon one another? s Black Marias, ye still hoped that virtuousness were non all a dream. Now are ye disabused. Evil is the nature of world. Evil must be your lone felicity. Welcome once more, my kids, to the Communion of your race? ( 2215 ) . These words penetrate Brown? s psyche so as non to be forgotten. By the terminal of the narrative, the storyteller describes Brown as? a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if non a despairing adult male? ? ( 2215 ) . He can no longer look upon his community with the same hopefulness he one time had. He becomes misanthropic of his milieus and lives his life consequently. His find of evil consequences in his loss of clasps with humanity. He comes to believe there is evil in all people and is unable to accept it. He grows old with disdain for his former graven images, and neer once more is he able to gestate of the thought that life is pure, expansive, and good. At his funeral, his household has nil promoting to set on his grave, and neighbours do non even bother to go to. Therefore, he is depicted, even in decease, as an single unable to happen felicity in his ain household and friends. As stated earlier, Hawthorne? s end is to demo the find of immorality can take one to express despair and cynicism. Brown is the medium through which he is able to accomplish this end. He is successful in learning his audience a moral lesson ; which is that in denying the thought that good exists and is capable of overmastering immorality, Brown has committed the worst wickedness of all. Bereft of religious religion, ? his deceasing hr was somberness? ( 2216 ) .