Kline 1
Blaine Kline
Mr. Harris
English IV H
26 September 2010
Thesis: With significant emphasis on the imagination, a descriptive forest setting, and an undeniable moral lesson, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” has all the makings of a fairy tale, despite the gothic influence, which leaves readers with an unsavory view of America’s Puritan past and little hope for a positive American future.
Benoit, Raymond. “‘Young Goodman Brown’: The Second Time Around.”The Nathaniel Hawthorne Review. 19 (Spring 1993): 18-21. Print. Benoit provides a psychoanalytic reading of “Young Goodman Brown” by focusing on “Jung’s Psychology and Religion” to clarify the psychological dimension of Hawthorne’s artistic achievement (19). Young Goodman Brown’s dream in the tale represents the struggle of his conscious and unconscious ideals of marriage. In Brown’s unconscious dream he uncovers sexual feelings, which he refers to as having gotten him “into trouble” (20). Brown’s submission during the forest scene erases his marriage, which is “annulled at least psychologically in the revelation of his deep feelings” because he is “repelled by sexuality” (14).
Coldiron, A.E.B. “Laughter as Thematic Marker in ‘Young Goodman Brown.’” The Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 17 (Spring 1991): 19. Print. In “Young Goodman Brown,” laughter “not only marks the narrative movement of the protagonist’s awareness and its underlying thematic conflict, but also heralds the protagonist’s initiation into a new vision, and even his assumption of an antagonistic leadership position” (19). Brown perceived the Puritan townspeople as strongly godly people; however, in his enlightenment or new vision he recognizes that these people do have evil tendencies and are hypocrites. In the end, laughter marks Young Goodman Brown’s acknowledgment of his new vision and his conversion into an opposing school of thought.
Franklin, Benjamin V. “Goodman Brown and the Puritan Catechism.” ESQ. 40 (First Quarter 1994): 64-88. Print. The role of catechism is the focus in this article. Catechism is a book that explains principals of Christian religion. Franklin examines the significance of “Young Goodman Brown” referring to Goody Cloyse teaching Brown his catechism. Franklin also identifies the use of John Cotton’s Milk for Babes catechism. This article suggests that Young Goodman Brown did not learn or comprehend the catechism; he only memorized the words and, therefore, he had no true understanding or ability to apply these tenets to his life. Franklin notes, “I then examine the entire catechism and apply it to Brown, demonstrating that he never masters its meaning” (64). With Brown not comprehending his religious principles, he does not realize the innate corruptness in mankind until his experience in the forest.
Keil, James C. “Hawthorne’s ‘Young Goodman Brown’: Early Nineteenth-Century and Puritan Constructions of Gender.” The New England Quarterly 69. (March 1996): 33-35. Print. This article examines how Puritan ideology helped to develop in the 19th century distinct gender roles that separate males into the public sphere and females into the private sphere. “Young Goodman Brown” reveals Hawthorne’s frustrations imposed by the tension between Puritan ideology and the natural behavior of man. Keil notes, “‘Young Goodman Brown’, probably written no earlier than the initial years of the decade and published anonymously in 1835, chronicles Hawthorne’s observations about the anxieties caused by such discrepancies between ideology and behavior” (34). Young Goodman Brown, who has come to believe with religious fervor what he has been taught prior to marriage about the separation of spheres, is “disoriented by the behavior expectations he confronts once he has entered that institution” (34). At its conclusion, it is implied that Hawthorne wants the reader to integrate historical and psychosexual concepts when comprehending Puritan values.
Morris, Christopher D. “Deconstructing ‘Young Goodman Brown.’” American Transcendental Quarterly 2 (March 1988). 22-33. Print. Morris uses reader response theory in order to describe how the reader is taken into Young Goodman Brown’s life. Morris then demonstrates, through deconstruction, how the reader is misled through Brown: “By following Young Goodman Brown, the fellow-traveler, and the narrator, the reader repeats the necessary misinterpretations they commit” (27). The reader interprets Brown’s experiences and is led to the same false interpretations. Brown concludes that life is meaningless, “acceding to a Nietzschean ‘transvaluation of all values’” (22). By misinterpreting “Young Goodman Brown,” the reader may possibly respond with doubt and dislike of mankind from the loss of faith in our ideological values.