When many minds read the same passage of writing it is hard to decode a perception that would be the same. Some authors write in this style so you can see yourself in the story and relate to the writings on a personal level, causing you to dig deeper into the story and really have a fuller understanding of the material. While reading Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne, my final take away was most likely different than others because I placed myself in the shoes of Good Brown and saw myself as the young and vulnerable man running through the woods with old witches and deceiving pastors. I think that his response is nothing worse than I would have reflected. I don’t know if I had an experience quite like his, if I would just bounce back.
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An article that covers this question is one written by Paul W. Miller called “Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown’: Cynicism or Meliorism?” Miller not only covers the topic about whether Goodman represents one kind of man or all men, but also asks the question is Goodman is generally selfish by human nature, ” If, on the one hand, Young Goodman Brown is intended to represent all mankind, Hawthorne himself must be regarded, at the time of composition of this story, as a totally cynical man, obsessed with the notion that even the best of men are but whited sepulchres, unable either to save themselves or to find salvation through divine grace”, or is at the hand of Meliorism by believing that the world can be made a better place by human effort by saying “Young Goodman Brown is intended to represent only a certain segment of mankind, his creator must be viewed as much less pessimistic than the alternative interpretation would suggest.”.(Miller, …show more content…
What I can tell, is maybe Miller was wrong, what if Brown represents all man kind, just in different parts of life. Before the Deacon was on the devils side, did he to worry and have vivid curiosity like brown? Before the Devil himself turned cold he worked for the Lord and was then turned over. Was he to like Brown? Frightened, curious, angry, concerned for faith, ete… While I have my own views here, I do like what he says next, “I think, is that he represents those weaker members of a puritanical society who are traumatized, arrested in their spiritual development, and finally destroyed by the discovery that their society is full of "whited sepulchres." Others in such a society, with more strength but less moral sensitivity than Brown, recognize the power of hypocrisy to give the appearance of virtue (the sine qua non of success), and capitalize on this discovery to rise to the highest positions of secular and religious authority. Then there are those few
An article that covers this question is one written by Paul W. Miller called “Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown’: Cynicism or Meliorism?” Miller not only covers the topic about whether Goodman represents one kind of man or all men, but also asks the question is Goodman is generally selfish by human nature, ” If, on the one hand, Young Goodman Brown is intended to represent all mankind, Hawthorne himself must be regarded, at the time of composition of this story, as a totally cynical man, obsessed with the notion that even the best of men are but whited sepulchres, unable either to save themselves or to find salvation through divine grace”, or is at the hand of Meliorism by believing that the world can be made a better place by human effort by saying “Young Goodman Brown is intended to represent only a certain segment of mankind, his creator must be viewed as much less pessimistic than the alternative interpretation would suggest.”.(Miller, …show more content…
What I can tell, is maybe Miller was wrong, what if Brown represents all man kind, just in different parts of life. Before the Deacon was on the devils side, did he to worry and have vivid curiosity like brown? Before the Devil himself turned cold he worked for the Lord and was then turned over. Was he to like Brown? Frightened, curious, angry, concerned for faith, ete… While I have my own views here, I do like what he says next, “I think, is that he represents those weaker members of a puritanical society who are traumatized, arrested in their spiritual development, and finally destroyed by the discovery that their society is full of "whited sepulchres." Others in such a society, with more strength but less moral sensitivity than Brown, recognize the power of hypocrisy to give the appearance of virtue (the sine qua non of success), and capitalize on this discovery to rise to the highest positions of secular and religious authority. Then there are those few