Setting In Young Goodman Brown example essay topic

Matt FondriestFiction Paper 2-10-05 Setting and its Effect on Understanding Young Goodman Brown Every tale ever told shares similar formal elements. All of these formal elements have equally important consequence on a story. The setting of a story has direct correlations to the way that the reader consumes the meaning of the story. The setting in Young Goodman Brown allows its author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, to leave the ending ambiguous, without closure. The reader is constantly expected to decide for themselves truth. Literal interpretation, widely accepted after its initial publication, respected the story as a puritan fable.

The message of which: Without faith in God you are defenseless against the evils of the world. This paper is written with the understanding that Young Goodman Brown left his faith at home and ventured to meet the devil in the godless wild. The devil has earned a reputation of being the worst of all tricksters. On the worst night of the year, along the scariest path outside of the birthplace of American witches, Young Goodman Brown met the devil and the devil played a terrible trick on him, or did he? Whether this apparition was a dream or a reality, the devil cursed Young Goodman Brown with a life long distrust of all those around him for his troubles. The setting of Young Goodman Brown is essential in achieving the uncertainty of actual events regarding the end of the story.

If we believe that God above is the all powerful good force in the world than the devil must fill the evil void. On Earth it is typically accepted that both God and the devil have absolute power. The most haunted town in America at the time of publication was Salem, Massachusetts. It wasn't by coincidence that Hawthorne chose Salem as the setting for his ghost story; he had family ties to the very events which made Salem infamous.

So he sets the story in a forest outside the town of witches still inhabited by devilish Indians. The forest is an important part of the setting as well. The forest in those days seemed vast and endless and much of it remained unexplored and foreign. Safety was achieved by living in communities.

Those who chose to wander into the forest oftentimes never returned. The early Americans did not trust the Native Americans or their ancient religions and practices. The settlers believed them to be the devils servants. In this setting no illusion is beyond the devils control. Without his faith, Goodman Brown is helpless to resist the wickedness of the devil... Hawthorne alludes to devil's magic by comparing his own staff as the very one the Egyptian magicians transformed to a serpent.

A witch who lost her broomstick appears along the path. Her identity: the old lady who taught young Goodman Brown his catechism. Goodman Brown sees the evil in everyone because as he journeys farther along the path with the devil the devil reveals members of his fraternity. Not only telling him of these people and their indiscretions but also by showing him those closest to him in the wicked congregation. We are all told as children not to wander far from our parent's watchful eye. What if your parents, grandparents, reverend, and Sunday school teacher were all practicing Satanists?

The setting of the actual ceremony is the reason that he cannot shake what he has seen deep in the woods. The massive gathering filled with every imaginable soul both pious and heathen, included every connection of Goodman Brown's social network. If what he had seen was reality, how could he go back to the way he was before this revelation if he had no one to turn to for guidance? Placing him back safely to bed after his denial, is easily interpreted as the devils punishment on Goodman Brown. If it was all just a dream, the dream in itself seemed so real due in part to the setting that it seemed ignorant to shrug it off as a mere illusion of the subconscious. If Goodman Brown had dreamt the events of this night in a place other than the dark godless forest he could easily written it off as a bad dream and returned to the existence he previously endured.

When in the company of the devil believing anything you see is not the wisest of decisions. However, when presented in the setting of this story the realism was enough to shake Goodman Brown's foundations loose. Goodman Brown was forced by his Puritan morality to accept the events as reality making him a miserable man for the rest of his days. If he chose to accept the events of that night as a mere dream, shrugged off the implications of evil abounding in every person surrounding him, he was damned to become evil himself. Either way when the common interpretation is considered, if you leave home without your faith you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.