Poe’s The Black Cat and Hawthorn’s Young Goodman Brown Essay

Hawthorne symbolized this through Faith, Goodman Brown’s wife, whom he deliberately left behind in order to follow the devil. The stories also expose the sinfulness of the characters, making them unlikable. Eventually, the devil takes the souls of all the characters, including those who acted the most devoutly. For example, Tom Walker “became... all of a sudden, a violent church-goer. He prayed loudly and strenuously as if heaven were to be taken by force of lungs,” (Irving 11). Nevertheless, the devil carries pious Tom away on his great black horse. In “Young Goodman Brown,” all the village’s citizens, including Faith, willingly gather at a worship service for the devil. This ruins Brown’s Christian life because he now thought there was no truth to Christianity. Consequentially, “when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave...they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom,” (Hawthorne 19). Man’s corrupt, sinful nature made it possible for the devil to capture the souls of Tom Walker and Goodman Brown.

Rummel gives an analysis of the history and development of Puritanism in New England during the 1600s. In simple words how the people had formed a society in order to reform England and separate church from government. Puritans had God as an almighty, they were known as people with strict education, solitary environment, and own beliefs such as their obsession with the devil, evil and good. Rummel states that even if Hawthorne mentions religion in his short stories most of it Puritanism, he still never recommended any particular opinion. The story is focused on Puritan elements and Hawthorne’s approach to it. Hawthorne uses religious phrases and elements that makes the reader analyze each several object, action, figure, and scenario in the story. That’s why Goodman Brown has too much conflict going on and is very detailed on what he feels and sees. The article is one great piece of information that supports the understanding of the Puritan religious mindset and Hawthorne’s attitude towards it. Of course into the interpretation of what might had happened in the story.

Hawthorne in essence, portrayed Goodman as proof of the nature of evil in man by showing how easily even a young dedicated Puritan can easily be influenced by a complete stranger. This stranger was symbolically the Devil among men in this text. Hawthorne begins introducing the Devil immediately as trying to sway Goodman to follow him on a long journey. By leaving his wife, Faith to begin the journey, Goodman Brown was symbolically leaving his faith in God and entering a forsaken ground by following the Devil. The fact that Goodman Brown left with no regard for his wife Faith’s warning, symbolized the lack of regard for his own faith in God and his fellow human race. This simple disregard that Goodman Brown showed was evidence of the easily persuaded ability of man to choose sin over good.

In “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author entertains the readers by using suspense and mystery. Hawthorne uses the devil and a witch as the main antagonists to test Young Goodman Brow’s faith, he uses symbolism to foreshadow. The author’s main goal as a puritan was to show that faith man’s most important quality, when is at risk it makes it seem as if everyone was bad, and see the rest of the world without faith.In “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author entertains the readers by using suspense and mystery. Hawthorne uses the devil and a witch as the main antagonists to test Young Goodman Brow’s faith, he uses symbolism to foreshadow. The author’s main goal as a puritan was to show that faith man’s most important quality, when is at risk it makes it seem as if everyone was bad, and see the rest of the world without faith.

Young Goodman Brown is a short story where the main purpose is to show the social issue of religion during the Puritan time. Although the author Nathaniel Hawthorne had not being living in that time, he came from a long line of Puritans. He wrote Young Goodman Brown to show the flaws of the Puritans’ view of religion. They made God seem heartless and mean spirited, someone who just used humans for entertainment. The short story Young Goodman Brown demonstrates that people should test their faith of their religious beliefs and even people considered upright can fall short of their own religious faiths from temptations and imperfections. In addition, the story shows that there is some degree of evil nature in everyone because of the freewill

In Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” although the decision to visit the devil was not one Goodman Brown following the crowd, he soon realized he had not been the only one tempted to visit the devil. Actually upon his meeting the devil, he realized that he did not want to continue his journey and wanted to return back home to his wife, Faith, but soon realized many of the townspeople were companions with satan. The themes of “Young Goodman Brown” are that religion or religious actions do not make someone righteous and although we have an appeal to live right, there is a small desire to try the “dark side”. Goodman Brown knew right from wrong growing up in the Puritan community, he also had individuals who would teach him the doctrine of his religion; however just like many people, Goodman Brown had to see what it would be like to travel into the wilderness and visit the devil. While Goodman Brown was on his way he begin to hear familiar voices and see familiar people—those who have taught him the “right” way of living. Of course since the wilderness was no place for a saint to be Goodman Brown would hide so that the others could not view him of being in error of the Christian faith. This is how the theme religion

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story “Young Goodman Brown” the allegory Goodman Brown, a man devoted to his faith in our Father the Lord, after making a hard decision that would follow him for the rest of his life ends up trying to make peace with the fact that he cannot take away the decision but can try to not make the matter worse. When Goodman Brown discovers the “depths of darkness” he is in he begins to have a loss of faith. The line for the story “’My Faith gone!’ cried he, after one stupefied moment. ‘There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil! for to thee as this world given.’” represents the fact that it appears that Goodman Brown lost his faith. That line also shows how he wished for the devil’s worship to come and retrieve him.

The events that unfolded in Edgar Allen Poe’s, “The black Cat,” are all due to one person, the narrator. It is because of his Mental state, being an alcoholic, and being abusive to his wife and pets that the fault lies heavily on the narrator. What this paper will entail is all three of the reasons why it is the narrator's fault for what happens in the story and it will come to a conclusion based off the findings in the story.

     The main focus of the story “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is the triumph of evil over good. A supposedly good man is tempted by evil and allows himself to be converted into a man of evil. This is much like the situation that arises in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, where two people are tempted to sin and give in thus submitting themselves to the power of the devil. In this novel, the area where the devil resides is strictly parallel to that in “Young Goodman Brown”.

In the short story “Young Goodman Brown,” the author Nathaniel Hawthorne shows the fragility of humans when it comes to their morality. Goodman Brown goes on a journey through the forest with the devil to watch the witches’ ritual and observes the evil in the Puritan society. He loses his faith as he sees the people he respects the most participating in the sinful ritual. Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes setting, and symbolism in his short story “Young Goodman Brown,” to show how a person’s perspective can change by showing the hypocritical nature of the Puritan society

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown,” tells the tale of a man whose Puritan beliefs were shaken to the core because reality turned out to be much different than he was taught in catechism. Goodman Brown showed readers how much he believed in his family’s goodness when he claimed “We have been a race of honest men and good Christians… We are a people of prayer, and good works, to boot, and abide no such wickedness” (Hawthorne 247). Because of this, Brown is surprised when he comes to know that people he thought were holy were in fact advocates for the devil and sinners- especially his wife Faith. People that he held in the highest regard were nothing but the lowest of the low to him now. He becomes surly, loses all faith in humanity, and develops a bitter worldview after this revelation.

Finally, Goodman Brown arrives at the initiation ceremony only to be confronted by the image of his wife at the unholy altar. Although Hawthorne never offers any true evidence that Goodman Brownâs experience in the woods was anything more than a dream or hallucination, the Puritan passes judgment on Faith, and forever doubts her goodness. By allowing his audience to internally assess Faithâs guilt or innocence, Hawthorne forces his reader into a role of complicity with Goodman Brown (McFarland 37). Thus, Hawthorne has created a troubling character with both light and dark facets.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," Hawthorne introduces Goodman Brown, who doubts himself and reiterates his false confidence to himself repeatedly. His struggle between the evil temptations, the devil, and the proper church abiding life, is a struggle he does not think he can handle. This story is about a man who challenges his faith in himself and in the community in which he resides. Goodman Brown must venture on a journey into the local forest, refuse the temptations of the devil, and return to the village before the sunrise.

Although now seen as the father of the modern horror story, Edgar Allan Poe was previously viewed as a drunken failure. Within Poe’s writings much of his own life riddled with guilt, anxiety, alcohol, depression and death shines through resulting in works that appear unrelated yet once dissected prove similar. This is true for Poe’s works “The Raven” and “The Black Cat”. Poe’s examples of gothic fiction share the use of the color black and a rapid digression of the narrator 's sanity while seemingly unveiling Poe’s internal pain. Despite these similarities, Poe’s works also differ immensely. “The Black Cat” focuses around death while “The Raven” is fixed around discovering the reasoning for a bird 's arrival. Moreover, gothic themes seen within “The Raven” do not necessarily remain constant when compared to “The Black Cat”.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” (repr. in Thomas R. Arp, and Greg Johnson, Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, 8th ed. [Fort Worth: Harcourt, 2002] 316) is a short story with strong Puritan influence. Puritanism is a religion demanding strict moral conduct and strong faith. Puritans held that Christians should do only what the Bible commanded. Analyzing “Young Goodman Brown” is dependant upon understanding the Puritan faith. The influence of the Puritan religion is vivid in literary elements such as setting, allegory, and theme.