Benny Goodman

Heroes are often seen as good and villains as bad. But, are heroes always good and villains always bad? Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” and Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried both explore the fluid nature of good and evil. In the “Young Goodman Brown,” the main character, Goodman Brown, wanted to experience the world for one night, and so left his faith behind while he set himself up for a night of adventure. He went through the forest and met the devil, and when he came back, he…

Thesis: The Lottery and Young Goodman Brown share similar narration techniques but applied differently, nonetheless, symbolism and traditions maybe the very theme that relates these stories. The authors of these two stories, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Shirley Jackson equally uses symbols inside their narratives. "The Lottery" and "Young Goodman Brown’s Symbolisms are exploit as an instrument to bring emphasis to the theme of each story. On one hand, Hawthorne uses names of people as well as items…

The forest in The Scarlet Letter, by Nathanial Hawthorn is a recurring metaphor in the novel. Gossip and shame encircled the forest, causing a skewed view of this isolated location within the Puritan community. However, Hawthorne dubs the forest as a place of freedom, joy, and truth to those with secrets. Boston’s Puritan society of the mid 1600’s feared the near-by forest. Believing that “the black man that haunts the forest” (Hawthorn 71). The forest symbolized many things about…

The duality and duplicity of the devil force Young Goodman Brown to question what is inherently good and evil in his life. Hawthorne utilizes the dual identities of the devil in an effort to portray the eternal, moral struggle of humanity. As Hawthorne states, the devil “had an indescribable air of one who knew the world, and would not have felt abashed at the governor's dinner-table” (Hawthorne 2), but “the only thing about him that could be fixed upon as remarkable was his staff … it might…

uncertainty and tragic endings. In “Young Goodman Brown”, Nathaniel Hawthorne incorporates archetypes such as color, archetypal women, and nature to develop the theme that all men are malicious. The nature archetypes in “Young Goodman Brown” are an effective illustration of imagery but also of symbolism. The nature archetypes demonstrate the reader what the characters are experiencing. At the start of the story, Hawthorne mentions the sunset when Goodman Brown commences his journey, as a result…

Man is Inherently Sinful "Man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness"(Martin Luther King Jr.). This quotation from Martin Luther King Jr. reveals that man has a choice to be good or evil. Each individual has the potential to display goodness but they also have the potential to give in to sin. It is up to man to fight his own inclination to sin. In Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness, he delineates that evil can come from…

tremendous impact on Hawthorne contemporaries and critics from home and abroad, which strengthens his literary position. In most every book he wrote, he discussed evil in human nature. For example, Hawthorne’s short stories “The Birthmark” and “Young Goodman Brown” established the theme of human nature as extreme, where telling are the background to reveal character. Hawthorne used setting as a means of reinforcing theme to relevant to the story of “The Birthmark” because Aylmer’s selfishness…

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, “Young Goodman Brown” there is a social dialogue created through the piece about issues that faced the author and the society around him. The discussion is created through the development of man giving in to evil due to the wrongdoing of his beloved wife, his confrontation with a devilish figure, entangling in the unending struggle evil, altering his reality, and a his loss of innocence. Young Goodman Brown travels into the woods and it becomes very clear…

the forest yet” (Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown 2). Both similar in the novels written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter and Young Goodman Brown exemplify the forest as a place of temptation towards relentless sin. Even though Hawthorne portrayed the forest in this way it later takes on the role of freedom from civilization and authority in The Scarlett Letter. The reader is initially introduced to the dual symbolism of the forest in Young Goodman Brown when Brown…

In “The Minister’s Vigil” Nathaniel Hawthorne develops depth to the characters by evaluating sin and guilt. The second scaffold scene in the novel reveals Arthur Dimmesdale’s feelings of guilt. The minister stands on the scaffold during the night in attempt to confess his guilt. In the first scaffold scene Hester stands on the scaffold with Pearl in her arms. In this scene the name of the father is investigated by Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. The two scenes in comparison differentiate when…