Good stories leave room for interpretation within their woven plots and characters; Good writers allow for these interpretations flourish and reveal themselves to the audience. Just like in our own lives, stories aren’t always so cut and dry. There are ideas and situations that are both morally and factually gray, things we aren’t so sure about one way or the other. One particular author who hones in on looking at the lines between good and evil is Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne uses very lengthy descriptions of drab and gloomy imagery as he dissects ideas such as guilt, sin, and morality within his works. In his story, “Young Goodman Brown”, Hawthorne compels his readers to question their own morality and standing by having them follow the
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She pleads with him, begging him to stay with her, but he insists that he must go out that night. “And Faith, as the wife was aptly named thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap.” (Hawthorne 420) His very own “Faith” is urging him to stay true to his ways. “Pray thee, put off your journey until sunrise, and sleep in your own bed to-night… Pray, tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year! “(Hawthorne 420) And yet despite these worries from Faith, he continues on with his journey, leaving Faith and his home behind, into the foreboding forest to indulge in his curiosities toward sin and evil, the very same things his religious views and fellow neighbors are stricken …show more content…
Whatever the answer is, it has profoundly changed the life of Young Goodman Brown. His beliefs, his outlook toward his neighbors and even his own wife, changed forever. How can we as the reader find which of the two is real, even when our own main character cannot? Hawthorne states in a letter to his wife, “Is truth a fantasy which we are to pursue forever and never grasp?” (Hawthorne 429) The thing Hawthorne wants to get through to his audience is not a concrete answer, it is having that hazy line drawn between reality and fantasy, good and evil, fact or fiction. Having that sense of uncertainty is what makes a story truly come alive in Hawthorne’s eyes. In another letter to editor Evert A. Duyckinkck, “The greatest possible merit of style is, of course, to make the mere words absolutely disappear into the thought.” He wants us to be able to question our own morals and principles within our lives, getting something much more valuable than simple words on a
She pleads with him, begging him to stay with her, but he insists that he must go out that night. “And Faith, as the wife was aptly named thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap.” (Hawthorne 420) His very own “Faith” is urging him to stay true to his ways. “Pray thee, put off your journey until sunrise, and sleep in your own bed to-night… Pray, tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year! “(Hawthorne 420) And yet despite these worries from Faith, he continues on with his journey, leaving Faith and his home behind, into the foreboding forest to indulge in his curiosities toward sin and evil, the very same things his religious views and fellow neighbors are stricken …show more content…
Whatever the answer is, it has profoundly changed the life of Young Goodman Brown. His beliefs, his outlook toward his neighbors and even his own wife, changed forever. How can we as the reader find which of the two is real, even when our own main character cannot? Hawthorne states in a letter to his wife, “Is truth a fantasy which we are to pursue forever and never grasp?” (Hawthorne 429) The thing Hawthorne wants to get through to his audience is not a concrete answer, it is having that hazy line drawn between reality and fantasy, good and evil, fact or fiction. Having that sense of uncertainty is what makes a story truly come alive in Hawthorne’s eyes. In another letter to editor Evert A. Duyckinkck, “The greatest possible merit of style is, of course, to make the mere words absolutely disappear into the thought.” He wants us to be able to question our own morals and principles within our lives, getting something much more valuable than simple words on a