Young Goodman Brown
The events in “Young Goodman Brown” are set at the last moments of the 17th Century, even though it was published in 1835. The story is an intellectual narrative with a sophisticated connection between evil and cleanness. It tells the narrative of a youthful man who finds himself in a pact with Satan. His misconceptions about the morality of his community are crumbled when he realizes that most of the residents in his town, including men of the cloth and his wife, are going to a Black Mass. At long last, it is unclear if his experience was a bad dream or a fact, but the consequences are unchanging. He is not able to condone the likelihood of wickedness in his kindred and is consequently in hopeless isolation and despair for life (Hawthorne, 1835). This essay will summarize the article “Young Goodman Brown” and feature two particular details that have been emphasized in the article.
Summary
The events start one early evening in little known Salem Village, situated in Massachusetts. A youthful Goodman Brown abandons Faith, who is his three-month-old wife, to attend to an unexplained task in the jungle. His wife begs him not to go, but he argues that the trip could not be postponed. Inside the jungle, Brown makes acquaintance with an elderly man whose clothing and bodily looks correspond with his. The elderly man walks with a black walking stick carved like a snake. Further in the jungle, they meet Good Cloyse, an elderly woman who had trained Brown catechism as a boy (Hagen, 2015).
She grumbles about her desire to walk and in an instant, the elderly man downed his walking stick so that the woman could use it and he hurriedly takes off with Brown. Different common folk enters the jungle on the same night, going in the same direction as Brown. After hearing the voice of his wife in the forest, he calls out her name but he does not get a reply. He quickly dashes straight between the trees, very upset that his wife has gone missing in the darkened, satanic jungle. After a short period, he finds himself in a clearance in the woods in the middle of the night where all the residents have congregated (Hagen, 2015).
In this function, which happens at an altar made of rocks with a huge campfire on it, the most recent attendants are lined up – Brown and his wife. They are the only ones who haven’t undergone initiation. The events vanish as soon as Brown begins to pray. When Brown gets home the following day, he is not sure if the activities that had taken place the day before were a dream or reality, although he is visibly terrified, and his faith that he stays in a Christian society is perverted. He loses hope on his wife, together with everyone else. From that moment onwards, his life becomes that of a resentful and apprehensive nonbeliever, cautious of anybody near him. Brown lives a faithless life till his death (Hagen, 2015).
Feature Two Particular Details that Have Been Emphasized in the Article.
Losing Faith in His Wife
The article highlights two primary positions: when he lost his wife and the figurative loss of his divine faith. His wife symbolizes hope and virtue, as here name, Faith, reveals. Brown had conflicting feelings are founded on if he should retain his faith. Initially, the conflict is undeniable: his wife pleads with him not to go into the jungle; his decision to abandon his wife becomes an analogy for his epiphany concerning spirituality, which he quits in a likewise manner towards the end of the narrative (Hawthorne, 1835). When his wife pleads with him not to go, Brown ponders if she had given up hope on him. Faith is a constant representation of her husband’s belief in spirituality in every part of the narrative: during Brown’s initial encounter with the devil, Satan faults him for arriving late, and Brown replies that Faith had delayed him, symbolically referring to the spiritual beliefs that almost blocked him from convening with Satan, but didn’t (Hagen, 2015).
Losing Faith in Religion
When Brown wailed for his wife after overhearing her sound in the congregation at the sorcerer’s ritual, a pink narrow strip of material dropped from the heavens. When Brown saw his wife engaging in the sorcerer’s rituals in the jungle, he immediately lost faith in both God (spirituality) and Faith (his spouse) at the same time. Inasmuch as Faith was symbolic of completeness and the way of redemption, now Brown could only see a contaminated derelict. Brown lifted up his head towards the dark heavens and wailed that his Faith had gone. The happy bridegroom who had left his house as a happy man in the initial scene had now turned into a sad husband, who had lost both his Faith and faith in a horrible manner (Hagen, 2015).
Conclusion
This essay summarized the article “Young Goodman Brown” and featured two particular details that have been emphasized in the article. Brown and Faith were a newlywed couple who had dreams of having a happy family. The two main details that were emphasized in the article were Brown losing faith in his wife and later losing faith in religion. He wondered if his wife had lost faith in him when she tried to stop him from starting his adventure in the jungle. On the other hand, when he saw his wife actively engaging in the sorcerer’s activities, he forfeited both his spiritual conviction and his spouse in that instant.
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