Does Young Goodman Brown Achieve Goodness? Essay -- Young Goodman Brow

Does recent Goodman Brown Achieve Goodness? Nathaniel Hawthorne often emphasizes the ambiguous nature of sin, that ethical and evil do not exist in parallel with individually other provided at many times intersect with each other in his fiction. In Young Goodman Brown, Hawthorne applies what he believes is the virtue of recognizing cosmic irony of taking into account the contradictions inherent in the clement condition, to his pic of Young Goodman Brown. According to Hawthornes view, Browns failure to recognize the inherent sinfulness in himself as well as the rest of kindness, results, not in a rewarding life of reveling in righteousness, but in isolation and obscurity. Hawthorne juxtaposes the liquidation of Salem, Massachusetts in the early 1690s, where doctrinal law and Puritan morality rule, with the mystical forest where evil and the supernatural re ramp to symbolically counterbalance Browns own misguided perception of the mutual exclusivity of good and evil. Brown connects the domain of goodness with his wife Faith, who he believes he is leaving behind in the village while he makes his journey into the wilderness. He describes her as a blessed angel on earth to whom he vows to return after(prenominal) this one night Ill cling to her skirts forever and follow her to heaven(65, 65). Browns characterization of Faith indicates that he believes he support travel between the universe of discourse of sin and the orbit of goodness and remain unscathed or unaltered by the experience. However, Hawthorne creates the conflict of the ambiguous nature of sin in liberality for Brown with certain key symbols. For instance, Hawthorne uses Faiths pink ribbons, to symbolize the notion that although the world of the village is supposed to be that of goodness and purit... ...able fact that sin is a part of human nature. The inability of Brown and Hilda to recognize Hawthornes concept that humanity resides not on either the side of evil or the side of virt ue, but somewhere in between the two where one can acknowledge ones own sinfulness as well as the sins of humanity, but one can also feel compassion for ones fellow human beings despite the sin, is what causes their weakness. Young Goodman Brown, by not noticing the nature of Faiths pink ribbons and Hilda, by looking at humanity with angel look(55) rather than with the eyes of a woman, both sacrifice the compassion which would allow them to make substantive and satisfying connections with their fellow human beings. Works CitedHawthorne, Nathaniel. Young Goodman Brown. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Julia Reidhead. recent York W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. 1998.