The Black Cat Symbolism Essay

In “Young Goodman Brown”, after his journey into the forest, Brown changes his entire outlook on life. He has lost his faith and has taken on a life of darkness and unrest because he is never sure whether the events of what happened in the forest were reality or imagined. From that point on he is never at peace because he is always expecting evil. And he is then depicted as a man who never has happiness with his beloved “Faith”, that is his wife and his actual faith in God, or in any other thing in his life. Brown becomes a victim to the nature of evil and the effects that it can play on the

Goodman Brown seems to be a religious man that is becoming skeptical about his faith and the goodness in people. Nathaniel Hawthorne names his main character Goodman, which is a representative of the general good in all men and women. As Goodman Brown takes his journey through the forest he begins to lose his faith. Goodman Brown says “What a wretch am I to leave her on such an errand!” (Hawthorne 1) and when he tells his companion “having kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is my purpose now to return whence I came. I have scruples touching the matter thou wot’st of” (Hawthorne 3).

In the story of "Young Goodman Brown" setting plays an important role. It provides symbolism to certain events and provokes emotions amongst the characters, especially those of Goodman Brown. The story of "Young Goodman Brown" is that of a man on an adventure to feed his curiosity and to visit the dark side of his Puritan town. Once he arrives at the destination of his adventure, he realizes that many of his elders have followed in the paths of evil and that holiness and innocence has been vanquished from his once thought to be holy Puritan town. The central idea of "Young Goodman Brown," is the conflict in Goodman Brown between joining the devil and remaining

Due to his naivety, Goodman Brown continues on his journey with the stranger, to spite what Faith and his instincts tell him, which ultimately turns him into a corrupted man. When the reader first meets Goodman Brown he is departing from his young wife, Faith. Faith urges young Goodman Brown to stay with her and not go on his journey but he refuses, assuring her that his journey is one of no real danger: "'A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts, that she's afeared of herself, sometimes.' […] 'My journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs be done 'twixt now and sunrise'" (620). Faith tells Goodman Brown about nightmares she has been having and how she wishes that he will stay beside her. Goodman Brown ignores her warnings and continues on his journey as if it is just a trip to the grocery store. After meeting the stranger, Goodman Brown inquires about turning back but the stranger has other ideas in mind: "' Let us walk on, nevertheless, reasoning as we go, and if I convince thee not thou shalt turn back, We are but a little way in the forest yet.' 'Too far, too far!’ exclaimed the Goodman, unconsciously resuming his walk" (621). The stranger wants Goodman Brown to continue on his path, and even though young Goodman Brown desires to turn back towards Faith, he is easily swayed to keep walking with the stranger. Hawthorn says he "unconsciously" resumes his walk,

	In Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Black Cat," symbolism is used to show the narrator’s capacity for violence, madness, and guilt. "The Black Cat," written by Edgar Allan Poe serves as a reminder for all of us. The Capacity for violence and horror lies within each of

He goes anyway. This trip will lead to the guilt that Goodman Brown will feel for the rest of his life. Goodman Brown goes into the forest to meet a man which we later find out is the devil. He was late because his wife had kept him in town. "You are late Goodman Brown." (p.383) He replies "Faith kept me back" (p.383), which is ironic because his wife Faith really kept him back that day, but his religious faith also kept him from confronting the devil previously. Goodman Brown follows the man or devil through the forest which leads to an open field. This is presumed to resemble The Garden of Eden. He sees the whole town there including his wife worshiping the devil. On his return to the town, Goodman Brown cannot look at anyone. The life that he knew before this journey was over and would never be the same. He didn't go to church or talk to barely anyone because of his guilt for going to worship the devil. When he died, "there was no hopeful verse upon his tombstone for his dying hour was gloom" (p. 391) This is like the "The Minister's Black Veil" showing that someone must live and breathe everyday knowing of the sin that they have committed.

Edgar Allen Poe’s short story The Black Cat immerses the reader into the mind of a murdering alcoholic. Poe himself suffered from alcoholism and often showed erratic behavior with violent outburst. Poe is famous for his American Gothic horror tales such as the Tell-Tale Heart and the Fall of the House of Usher. “The Black Cat is Poe’s second psychological study of domestic violence and guilt. He added a new element to aid in evoking the dark side of the narrator, and that is the supernatural world.” (Womack). Poe uses many of the American Gothic characteristics such as emotional intensity, superstition, extremes in violence, the focus on a certain object and foreshadowing lead the reader through a series of events that are horrifying

“The Black Cat” is an old short story written by Edgar Allan Poe an American Writer. It is a horror fiction story which demonstrate the fascinating changes that the human mind has during the abuse of alcohol. The protagonist is physiological corrupter by the abuse of alcohol and his mind play games with itself. He changes his personality as the story progresses and the way that he treats others around him. Everyone is affected by his behavior even his lovely cat. The cat becomes the object of his hate and in some way it is the first thing that he blames about his irrational acts. In the short story “The Black Cat”, Edgar Allan Poe, uses a varied forms of Irony, dramatic Irony, verbal Irony, and situation irony to produce a transformation of love threw hate along of the story.

“Young Goodman Brown” tells the story of Goodman Brown. Goodman Brown begins the story about to leave home and his Puritan Wife Faith to go on a journey that he felt guilty with to begin with. Despite his initial guilt, he leaves home a devout Puritan and sound in his beliefs. Throughout the story, Goodman Brown digresses as a man and loses his faith over the course of events of the story. On his journey, Brown meets a man who first tries to tempt him to go with him to a meeting in the forest. The man turns out to be the devil. Before parting ways, the devil gives Brown a staff

Edgar Allan Poe, the acclaimed poet, has created a multitude of short stories, one being “The Black Cat”.The short story depicts an alcoholic on his slow descent into insanity; this relates heavily to the author’s own life, being an extreme alcoholic himself. The narrator of “The Black Cat” is not only driven mad by alcohol, but also by a black cat, as you might guess from the title of the story. At the beginning of “The Black Cat”, you can tell the narrator’s alcohol addiction is taking its toll when he starts abusing his wife and pets. His actions slowly led up to him killing his cat, Pluto, and then killing his own wife because tried to defend their second cat from him. His meticulous writing style, diction, syntax, and imagery in his short stories are used to portray his emotions.

Later that day, he went in the gloomy forest to be in the ceremony in which he wanted no parts of. As he travels deeper into the forest, he meets with a man who so happens to be the devil. The old man shows Goodman the truth about his family, some of the villages, and his wife. Goodman Brown now sees how they are not true Christian as they swear to be, instead they preach the evil. Young Goodman Brown goes back to the village with fear. Although, he does not know if it was a dream, he no longer looks at anyone the

He has uncertainty towards everyone as they may be devil worshippers. Contrary to the beginning of the text, Goodman Brown’s wife, Faith, was portrayed as a “blessed angel” that did no wrong (Hawthorne 7). The name “Faith” is symbolic because it represents Brown’s loyalty to following the Puritans beliefs which are to avoid going on witch hunts as it is a sin to be a witch. Goodman Brown is seen as a hypocrite because he is in shock that the people in his life have sinned by idolizing the devil; however, he also violated his beliefs by going to the forest to detect witch crafts. He begins to lose his innocence as his wife had delayed his trip because she wanted him to stay (12). By leaving her alone at home, he disobeyed her because instead of being an honorable husband, he was more curious about the devil that is in the woods. Moreover, Brown realized without the presence of Faith, he frets that he will be led to the devil and everyone will notice (46-50). He constantly is worried that he will be unfaithful; therefore, he feels lost without Faith being around as she represents the good in

He is taken before a burning altar where he stands before the cloaked older version of himself, represented to be Satan. Here he finds that he is being initiated into the ways of humanity and its sinful ways. He soon finds himself staring into his beautiful wife Faiths eyes and pleads for her not to succumb to the evil before them. The scene fades to black, and he later appears to reawaken as if after a dream within the boundaries of the woods. Goodman Brown then finds himself walking from these dire woods and continues his trek homeward. All does not seem quite right with the familiar people that he crosses paths with throughout the town. His images of the scholarly old woman, the Deacon, and even the minister are now tainted with sin and evil. Goodman lives out his life distrusting others and their motives. He has lost faith in humanity, religion, and of his own cherished wife Faith. He dies a bitter, empty death for taking that journey into the dark wood and not resisting

He finds that all of the good people are participating in a frantic satanic ritual and god forsaken acts that forsake God himself. One of the key points in “Young Goodman Brown”, is the battle of whether or not Goodman Brown should remain good or joining the devil. The journey for Goodman Brown is very difficult, as he traverses through the woods at night, all while contemplating of the good things such as his wife Faith who he leaves behind. This internal conflict causes a destruction of the Young Goodman Brown and results in the creation of a completely different man.

Young Goodman Brown is a religious man that oddly takes a chance for the worst. Goodman Brown leaves his home at the beginning of the story to go exploring into a forest where he is changed by what is happening in the forest. When Goodman Brown leaves at night is significant because at night evil things can happened. The difference between him leaving at night and day is that he knows he shouldn’t be doing what he is doing, because at night more things are unseen. Goodman Brown was pulled in the forest by this devil figure, also he knows he shouldn’t be meeting with devils, because that shows he is leaving his faith and his wife. Goodman Brown was late to the meeting with the devil, and the devil was wondering why he was late so he asked him.