Essay on Faith in Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown -- Young Goodman Bro

Faith in five-year-old Goodman Brown For those who have non studied the Puritans or their beliefs, Nathaniel Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown is not much more than a story of lost (or maybe just confused) organized religion. Hawthone, a man of puritan descent, had some oppositions to the ideals that Puritans followed. Some of these ideals are discussed in his Young Goodman Brown. The basic impression that most people have of Puritans describes them as dour, irascible, self-righteous, hypocritical people who hated sex, joy, and life. They dressed in black, they hated nature, they burned witches, and they repress only natural desires,. This is the view that influences most people when Puritans appear in literature. We see the stereotypical hatred of the forest (the bedevils playground), the fear of Indians (the Devils spawn) and the extreme fear of the Devil himself run rampant in Young Goodman Brown. Hawthornes description of the forest is very disheartening. He had taken a dr eary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest... (p 375) This is a rather depressing and f... ... not be so blindly relied upon. However, after a bit more delving, that the story speaks not only of faith and its hazards, but of the flaws in the puritan system. 1.) Roberts, Trish. Background to the American Puritans.http//www.missouri.edu/engpat/purs.html. (accessed 2-1-02) 2.) Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Young Goodman Brown. printed in A Handbook of CriticalApproaches to Literature Fourth Edition. Editors Wilfred L. Guerin, Earle Labor, Lee Morgan, Jeanne C. Reesman, prank R. Willingham. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 1999.