Nathaniel Hawthornes Young Goodman Browns Apocalypse Essay

Nathaniel Hawthornes Young Goodman Browns Apocalypse Most criticism and reflection of Nathaniel Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown centers on a good versus evil theme. Critics also debate interpretations of the main characters consciousness; is Brown awake or dreaming. What is certain is that he lives and dies in pain because his belief in his righteousness isolates him from his community. It is also certain that Hawthornes interpretation of Browns mid-life crisis has ambiguity and leaves a reader with many different feelings about what and why certain things have happened. Hawthornes use of symbolism in his allegorical tale Young Goodman Brown causes the main characters†¦show more content†¦What he considers moral and good in his life he finds in the forest. This torments his perception of practically everything. A good man in Hawthornes day was a person of proper lineage. This very lineage Hawthorne capitalizes on as he begins the goodmans conference with the devil. The Goodman claims that he is from a family of upright and moral men that have never and would never go into the forest on a trip such as the one he is participating. Hawthorne depends upon this defense to criticize the patriarchal lineage upon which a person places his worth (Segura). The devil disproves Browns theory by stating that all of Browns ancestors accompanied him and tortured women in Salem or burned to the ground Indian villages. Afterwards the devil and his ancestors would go for a friendly walk. With this, Hawthorne has mocked the institution of Young Goodman Browns lineage and his societys view of honor by stating his familys past. The question remains whom or what is the devil. If the devil points to the painful truth of the past and the reality of people in the present, is this the allegorical face of evil (Seg ura)? Perhaps Hawthorne playing upon the readers disposition to see the devil as evil and stand next to the good man and his fate? Distraught, disappointed and confused, Brown leaves the company of the devil. HeShow MoreRelatedAmbiguity of American Gothic Fiction1765 Words   |  8 Pagesof Arthur Gordon Pym and in Charles Broken Brown’s Edgar Huntly expresses a transformation of certain gothic conventions to an American setting which are the result of 19th century anxieties. This change was adapted to the cultural and psychological anxieties of that time, which were the ambiguity of the integration of miscegenation of African Americans and Native Americans, the fear of the wilderness and of the unknown and the suggestion of an apocalypse or failure of the American dream. The rhetorical