Morgan, Morgan by Janette Turner Hospital

She writes “And here I cannot but take notice of the strange providence of God in preserving the heathen...”

Goodman Brown’s journey into the woods introduces us into his own religious hypocrisy. His character is described as young and possibly naïve to the true nature of the world, and Goodman Brown considers himself descended from”… a race of honest men and good Christians” (343). However, for unknown reasons, perhaps just out of curiosity, he decides to venture into the woods on a quest of “evil purpose.” Faith, Goodman Brown’s wife, is an important source of symbolism throughout his journey. She is not only his wife, but she is also symbolic of his spiritual faith. Before setting off into the woods Faith begs him not to go and foreshadows that nothing good will come of his trip. Hawthorne uses this scene to emphasize that questioning and straying from his “Faith” for even a night shows that his spiritual faith is much less established than he displays to his wife or the public. It also symbolizes that Goodman Brown had doubted and compromised his faith before he even began his voyage into the woods.

In the allegorical short story entitled “Young Goodman Brown”, author Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the irony of words and their connotations to express his ideas. The most evident example of this word inference is the used of “Faith” as the name of Young Goodman Brown’s wife. Religiously, faith can be defined as “the belief and trust in God and in the doctrines expressed in the scriptures or other sacred works” (Merriam-Webster). Hawthorne uses the relationship between Brown and his wife to parallel that with his own personal faith.

From the beginning of Hawthorne's story a test of faith prevails. From the moment that Young

Morgan is being tempted into their circle by adding in the element of evil in the story; “The more it seems to me that fear and hatred [are] the two sides of the same coin.” (9) After his meeting with the professors, all of which are successful in convincing Mr. Morgan the wrongs of murder, he then feels enlightened. In the end, he then concludes that, saying, “Like a criminal who can no longer live with himself, I am content to [be] judged.” (9)

I felt from the beginning that Reuben Land, even as a young child, was unsure of his faith or the miracles of God. But, he is often the only person that witnesses his father’s miracles. Reuben reflects that, “The fact is, the miracles that flowed from my father’s fingertips had few witnesses but me. Yes, enough people saw enough strange things that Dad became the subject of a kind of misspoken folklore in our town, but most ignored the miracles as they ignored Dad himself” (3-4). Reuben often looks to his dad as a hero and recounts the early miracles by saying, “I now think of my survival as my father’s first miracle” (5); “the second, I suppose, is that the doctor turned out wrong

In 1821 at a church service, Lee became so overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit that she sermonized extemporaneously, without the elders’ permission. This happened when a visiting Reverend was to preach. He began to give his text which was from Jonah; he began with saying “Salvation is of the Lord”. But he must have lost the Spirit or something because he suddenly became silent and in that same moment Mrs. Lee was prompted by the Spirit of God, jumped to her feet and gave an exhortation on the very text that the Reverend had began to preach from! Lee describes this experience as God’s way of showing the world that she was truly called. But she also describes herself as being incredibly frightened of the repercussions that she would face because of what she had done. She thought that she might be expelled from the church. But to her surprise the Bishop announced to the congregation that she had come to him eight years prior asking to be permitted to preach and that he had denied her, but now believed that she was indeed called to the work. This and subsequent sermons established her as an evangelist whose words could heal hopeless penitents and encourage dying backsliders of any denomination.

“What a strange, sad man is he!” said the child, as if speaking partly to herself. “In the dark night-time, he calls us to him, and holds thy hand and mine... And in the deep forest, where only the old trees can hear, and the strip of sky see it, he talks with thee...And he kisses my forehead...But, here, in the sunny day, and among all the people, he knows us not; nor must we know him!” (Hawthorne

The “Misfit’s” response to the Grandmother’s act of unexpected and profound compassion conveys O’Connor’s confidence in the belief that God’s grace and the power of faith are not only strong and omnipresent, but also adversative to a dependence on human reason alone. Even though the “Misfit” consistently rejects the “Chrustian” faith, based almost solely on a lack of factual evidence, he seems to desperately want to believe and enjoy an acceptance of the omnipotence and omnipresence of God’s grace and love. He understands that faith is a choice; he simply chooses to live by himself instead, standing by his own sense of independence and autonomy and saying that he’s “doing all right by [himself]”. As the “Misfit” is continually pressed by the Grandmother to pray, he is pushed farther into this rejection of faith, even seemingly connecting the Grandmother to a literal representation of Jesus as she experiences her spiritual transformation right before her death.

Her death, moreover, comes through the agency of an apparently gratuitous and incomprehensible evil. Her ability to accept such a death is therefore the supreme test of her faith. That the grandmother at the moment of death truly embraces the Christian mystery is her great triumph. Although, in Christian terms, such a moment is always a gift, it is one for which the recipient has prepared throughout her life. The grandmother’s most essential attribute is therefore not her meddlesomeness or her smugness, of which there has been considerable evidence throughout the story, but her maternal compassion and concern, and it is through this maternal love that she has her moment of revelation. As O’Connor once described it, “she realizes . . . that she is responsible for the man before her and joined to him by ties of kinship which have their roots deep in the mystery she has been merely prattling about so far.” The action of grace is not confined altogether to the grandmother but begins to undermine The Misfit’s own egotism and sadism. Insisting on the possibility of redemption for even this most evil of her

In James Baldwin’s 1952 novel “Go Tell It On The Mountain” the characters in the novel each embark on a spiritual journey. Baldwin has dedicated a chapter to each member of the Grimes family, detailing their trails and tribulations, hopes and aspirations, as each one’s quest to get closer to God becomes a battle. I have chosen the character John because I admire the fierce struggle he endured to find his spirituality. I will examine how he’s embarked on his quest and prove that he has done it with integrity and dignity.

Faith plays a major role in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown”. From the start of his journey to his arrival back home, Faith is always in the back of head, making him question his surroundings and own thoughts. It’s hard to determine when he’s speaking of his lovely wife Faith or his Faith in his God and religion. Through his many

"Faith!" shouted Goodman Brown, in a voice of agony and desperation; and the echoes of the forest mocked him, crying- "Faith! Faith!" as if bewildered wretches were seeking her, all through the wilderness.

Tuesdays with Morrie tells the real story of Morrie Schwartz. Morrie was a university professor who was dying of ALS (Lou Gehrig 's disease). Instead of being afraid of death, he faced it head on and decided to make the most of his time left. After seeing a Nightline episode featuring his old professor, Morrie, the author, Mitch, decides to pay his old professor a visit. Mitch is intrigued by Morrie 's attitude towards death and his life lessons, so he decides to visit Morrie again next Tuesday and record what Morrie has to say. This turns into a weekly meeting between Mitch and Morrie and eventually these meetings were turned into the book, Tuesdays with Morrie. Mitch - the author of the book and Morrie 's old student. Mitch is distracted in his life and focusing on things that Morrie feels are unimportant (work, fame, and success). Though focused on the wrong things, Mitch has a good heart and Morrie helps him find himself again “The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.

In “An Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory” Bennett and Royle, explore topics such as subjectivity and ideology. In the Chapters “Me” and Ideology”, Bennett and Royle are able to define the terms as well as suggest how they are interrelated or interconnected. Bennett and Royle contend that literature replicates structures of ideology while encouraging subjects to question personal idenitity. They believe “subjects – people – make their own ideology at the same time as ideology makes them subjects” (Bennett and Royle 202). Stevens exemplifies Bennett and Royles contentions by building his ideologies around his profession as a bulter at the risk of losing himself to the subjection of his ideologies in which he can never be alone and cannot exist without his profession or the justications of his profession.