Essay on Faith in Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown -- Young Goodman Bro

Faith in youthfulness Goodman brownness For those who have not studied the Puritans or their beliefs, Nathaniel Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown is not much more than a story of wooly-minded (or maybe just confused) combine. Hawthone, a man of puritan descent, had some oppositions to the ideals that Puritans followed. intimately of these ideals are discussed in his Young Goodman Brown. The basic impression that most people have of Puritans describes them as dour, irascible, self-righteous, hypocritical people who hated sex, joy, and life. They dress in black, they hated nature, they burned witches, and they repressed all natural desires,. This is the discern that influences most people when Puritans appear in literature. We see the stereotypical nuisance of the forest (the Devils playground), the fear of Indians (the Devils spawn) and the extreme fear of the Devil himself run rampant(ip) in Young Goodman Brown. Hawthornes description of the forest is very disheartening. H e had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest... (p 375) This is a rather depressing and f... ... not be so blindly relied upon. However, after a bit more delving, that the story speaks not only of faith and its hazards, but of the flaws in the puritan system. 1.) Roberts, Trish. Background to the American Puritans.http//www.missouri.edu/engpat/purs.html. (accessed 2-1-02) 2.) Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Young Goodman Brown. printed in A Handbook of CriticalApproaches to Literature Fourth Edition. Editors Wilfred L. Guerin, Earle Labor, downwind Morgan, Jeanne C. Reesman, John R. Willingham. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 1999.