Essay on Ghost Story of the New Jersey Devil

The Devil’s Arithmetic features a Jewish girl, Hannah Stern, as the main character. Her and her family live in the United States, as their ancestors had traveled to America after the conclusion of World War II and the Holocaust. The movie goes back in time to 1942 due to Hannah’s lacking interest in learning about her family’s past. The time travel proves as a lesson to Hannah, as it takes her through t he Holocaust with her own family members. Throughout the movie, there are several accuracies and inaccuracies concerning history. Overall, the movie is very precise in reenacting history in order to portray its message about the Holocaust.

During the early 1700s, a traveler met a man in the Massachusetts forest. However, this was no mortal human, but the devil. “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Devil and Tom Walker,” two short stories, both start out this way. Washington Irving wrote the latter in 1824, which tells how Tom Walker profited by working for the devil. In 1835, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote “Young Goodman Brown,” which describes Goodman Brown’s encounter with the devil. Despite minor deviations between their themes, the two stories share ideas regarding the devil, specifically his appearance and connection with man’s depravity. overpowering minor deviations between their themes. [MAYBE DELETE THE LAST HALF OF THE THESIS, AND ADD SPECIFICITY TO THE FIRST HALF (WHICH IDEAS OF THE DEVIL ARE SIMILAR?)]]

In the 1600s, a group of Protestant Christians, known as Puritans, migrated to the New World to form a colony completely based on the Bible. Because the Puritans were fundamentalists, they believed everything said in the Bible was a true word of God, and thus, they believed everything in the Bible to be true. This included the Devil and witches. The Devil could possess a human’s body and turn them into a witch. During the 17th Century, witchcraft became a serious offense and lead to 24 deaths. The causes of these many deaths were deep religious beliefs, relations of the church and government, and bored girls striving for attention with the infliction of paranoia.

In this document, he depicts the evil spirits as being actually real entities and then tries to justify the horrible acts of cruelty during the trials because of them. He states with a genuine feeling that, “these our poor Afflicted Neighbors quickly after they become Infected and Infested with these Demons, arrive to a Capacity of Discerning those which they conceive the Shapes of their Troublers; and notwithstanding the Great and Just Suspicion, that the Demons might impose the Shapes of Innocent Persons in their Spectral Exhibitions upon the Sufferers.” He starts off saying that the reason the Devil is angry with his people is that they have encroached unto his lands. That this new world is so unforgiving in nature that it is alike to that of the Devil. Mather states that these lands, “were once the Devil’s Territories; and it may easily be supposed that the Devil was exceedingly disturbed.” He says this to justify the reason why the Devil is angry with the people. Mather’s quote not only claims that the New Englanders of this area are in fact people of God, but more importantly that they are located deep in the Devil’s territory and that the Devil is very displeased these people loyal to Jesus Christ and Christianity.

The appearance of the devil’s in the two stories are quite different, for example, the devil in the Hawthorne story has black eyes, natty clothes, and a staff. He looks like anyone else and is “about fifty years old”; he is similar to Brown and is no different from him (Hawthorne 2). The devil’s staff has a black snake appearance and looked as if it was twisting and wriggling “like a live serpent”(2). Appearance is a large portion of how people are perceived. If the devil wasn’t dressed nicely; people wouldn’t trust him as much or believe him. When dressed nicely; people are more likely to trust them and associate with them. In the King story the devil represents fire, for instance, he has orange eyes. His mouth was as big as a sharks and when it opened you’d see fierce orange just like his eyes. He also wore natty

The short stories “The Devil and Tom Walker” and “The Devil and Daniel Webster” were written at very different times but can be seen as similar stories. The depictions of the devil, the role of religion, and the resolution of each story were very different.

HALE. When the devil comes to you does he ever come- with another person? (She stares into his face) Perhaps another person in the village? Someone you know.

Both Hawthorne and King used the Devil’s appearance in their stories to develop the effect of evil on the protagonists. In Hawthorne’s story, the Devil was portrayed as a human-like and friendly character, despite his evil intentions. The Devil appeared to be “in the same rank of life as Goodman Brown,” and he could have been mistaken as a relative to Goodman Brown (Hawthorne 2). The Devil’s similarities to Goodman Brown established the Devil as a man, not so much a monster, which is a possible explanation as to why Goodman Brown had agreed to meet the Devil. Although he remained as a human figure throughout the story, the Devil seemed dark and evil. The Devil’s staff “bore the likeness of a great black snake,” which describes the nature of the Devil (2). The description of the staff applies to the Devil himself as an evil, manipulative liar. Hawthorne also used phrases such as “the dark figure” and “gleamed darkly” to develop the evil nature and appearance of the Devil in his story (7).

During the 17th century and a time when there was a strong belief in the devil (Sutter, 2003) a very well-known incident took place, The Salem Witch Trials. What started out as innocent meetings in the kitchen of the town minister, Samuel Parris, with the slave from the Caribbean and some of the towns young girls, one of which was his young daughter and another his niece, turned into the accusations of witchcraft by means of an unknown illness and spectral evidence. The town of Salem Massachusetts would forever be changed in 1692 where one hundred forty people were accused of witchcraft, 19 hanged and one man pressed to death.

The devil can appear in any shape or form. He has been personified throughout history in literary works such as in Joyce Carol Oates’ ‘Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?’, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘Young Goodman Brown’, and Steven King’s ‘The Man In The Black Suit’. In each he has

The two different incarnations of the devil in both Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown, and Stephen King’s The Man in The Black Suit both interact a lot with the main characters in both stories. These two characters are left with strong impressions from these devils for the rest of their lives. These impressions include the devil’s appearance, their behavior and powers and many other things as well.

In seventeenth century Massachusetts, there was a great deal of panic and fear in the people surrounding even the simple idea of the devil. So, when rumors spread that other humans among them

“Now, by these confessions ‘tis agreed that the devil has made a dreadful knot of witches in the country, and by the help of witches has dreadfully increased that knot…” (Cotton Mather, pg 330)

Although not commonly associated with Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the devil is mentioned the classic American novel. Hawthorne describes Satan as a tall, black man who lives in the woods, interacting with humans and witches to corrupt their souls. Portrayals of Satan throughout history have given him many different associations, one of the most well-known displays of him being in Dante Alighieri’s epic poem, Inferno and Peter Cook’s comedic film, Bedazzled. In these two depictions, the devil is shown malicious yet tragic figure, although his reaction his punishments vary.

For as long as humans have been recording their history, it is common to find some type of story/folklore in their recordings. Some might be served as entertainment purposes while other are stories of a paranormal experience. It is save to say that as society changes, one thing says constant: people love to hear stories from fairytales to ghosts stories. Another constant is that these stories are always relevant to society in any era, hence why stories continue to be told over and over again. The Devil’s Backbone is a true example of how to plot is relevance to the everyday lives of people in the United States now. It is a film about a little boy by the name of Santi that got killed by the antagonist Jacinto. His spirit then haunts the orphanage/boarding