Preview

Examples Of Loss Of Innocence In Young Goodman Brown

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1408 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Examples Of Loss Of Innocence In Young Goodman Brown
March 17, 2013
Assignment #2
The Loss of Innocence Crime is an interesting aspect of our every day society. People choose to commit crimes for various motives and intentions. One thing that will always go hand-in-hand with the concept of crime is the idea of innocence. Innocence is something that we are born with and something that we slowly loose as we mature and learn. In the event of a crime, someone is always guaranteed to experience a loss of innocence whether it is the person committing the crime, the victim, or a witness. The nature of crime is not innocent, therefore the results of a crime will not be innocent. As stated above, there are many different types of crime and these types can be seen through film and literature
…show more content…
While he is in the woods, he witnesses an evil ceremony that involves many people whom he had believed were “good” and innocent. This story does not have a blatant crime such as murder or theft, rather, the crime in this story is the loss of innocence. While Young Goodman Brown is in the woods, he is tempted by evil and he sees the evil hidden within his loved ones. Young Goodman Brown is experiencing a loss of his own innocents while he is noticing the lack of innocence of those around him. By the end of the story, Young Goodman Brown has returned home where everything and everyone appears to be normal. This part in the story is where we can see how the loss that he has experienced really affects him. With the loss of innocence that young Goodman Brown has experience, he will never know whether he was dreaming or if the people around him are truly evil. This new outlook on his surroundings is going to effect how he interacts with others because he doubts their innocence. A good example of this is when Goodman Brown has finally returned home, he denies his wife a kiss because he questions her innocence and

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    To begin with, both main characters are allured by temptation. In the plot of “Young Goodman Brown,” Brown goes on a journey through the woods that makes him question…

    • 396 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The first example of loss of innocence is seen in To Kill a Mockingbird. When Jem asked Atticus about the mob surrounding him. This was the first time that he realized that racist gangs such as the Ku Klux Klan were a threat. Jem was scared for his father because he realized that his father was in a bad situation. This is seen here: “They were after you, weren’t they?” Jem went to him. “They wanted to get you, didn’t they?” ( Lee 146). During the 1930’s the idea of equal rights between different ethnicities was very popular. This affected almost everyone's life. Throughout the book the reader can see both Jem and Scout become more familiar with the idea of racism. As they learned more about it, they also developed their own theories and stances…

    • 218 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Was this a sort of wickedness that the forest had left upon him or was it a dream that was so evil and seemed so real that Goodman Brown now does not trust anyone worth trusting, including his wife Faith? It states that “Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest, and only dreamed a wild of a witch-meeting?” (Hawthorne, 1835, para. 70). Whether that be the case or not, there was a sort of omen upon Goodman Brown that left him untrustworthy of anyone. This shows that his character was pure and in God’s faith and whether the events in the forest were real or not, his faith was with God and not the Devil. Goodman Brown had good morals and his intentions were…

    • 964 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The character Goodman Brown, from “Young Goodman Brown,” partakes in a journey into the forest during the late evening where he undertakes many obscure paths that transform his attitude with life completely. Goodman Brown starts off as an innocent man until he ventures deeper into the forest and meets with an elderly man that possibly represents the devil. The stranger began to corrupt Goodman Brown’s mind as they proceeded along the journey. For example, “Goodman Brown believes in the Christian nature of Goody Cloyse, the minister,…

    • 665 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the short story, “Young Goodman Brown,” Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the literary archetype of a good versus evil opposition to contribute to Goodman Brown’s fate. In the beginning of the story, Goodman Brown must choose to “put off [his] journey until sunrise, and sleep in [his] own bed” (133), or abandon his wife for the night to pursue an evil errand. Even after his wife pleads him to stay, Goodman makes the decision to leave his home to journey to an evil place. Considering how quickly Hawthorne allows Goodman to face a conflict of good versus evil in the story, readers begin assuming that Goodman’s condition will directly connect to the choices he makes in these situations. Readers find proof of this connection when Goodman…

    • 400 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Weekly Report #1

    • 1223 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Young Goodman Brown: This story was confusing at first, but after the second read through I found the story of Goodman Brown to be a great revelation that people aren’t always who they seem to be. When Goodman Brown meets up with the older man, he is essentially meeting up with the devil. The devil then weaves Goodman Brown into what is described as a dream, although to me as well as Goodman Brown, it is possible that it was not a dream. In Goodman Brown’s “dream”, Goodman Brown is lead to a sort of “evil ceremony” where he discovers many surprising people attending such as the minister of the church, Deacon Gookin, and his own wife, Faith. Seeing these people who Goodman Brown thought to be pious, Goodman Brown awakens from his “dream” with a new vision of the world. After the devil’s “dream” Goodman Brown is convinced that everyone is evil and loses his trust in the people of Salem. It was when Faith, Goodman Brown’s wife, was revealed to be attending the ceremony did Goodman Brown really start to lose his trust. When Goodman Brown saw his wife, as well as the ribbons falling from her cap, Goodman Brown lost this idea of female purity. Again, at first the story of Goodman Brown was a little confusing, but the second time around the story represented the great illusion that all people are pure due to moral choice and the illusion of female purity.…

    • 1223 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A lesson taught by Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird is that you should never kill a mockingbird because they only create music and harm nothing. What Atticus meant by this is that you should never hurt an innocent person no matter the situation. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird the mockingbird symbolizes all that is innocent and all that is harmless in society. Harper Lee uses two characters to show the innocence in people and to show how this innocence is often killed: Tom Robinson and Boo Radley. The theme in To Kill a Mockingbird, that often the innocent are harmed by the wicked unjustly and intentionally, only to be saved by the brave and intelligent, who try hard to show society who these people really are is clearly articulated throughout the novel by the use of the symbolism of the mockingbird infused in the…

    • 874 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Young Goodman Brown ask a false question of faith, false in the assertion that the question can have only two answers. Faith is singularly defined as good thus all else, especially doubt, is evil. Therefore, Goodman Brown’s revelation - not all people of faith have pure faith- is profoundly troubling. In effect the rigid construct of his world is shattered. Furthermore Brown, due to his position in society, epitomizes respectability and is naturally married to Faith. His status is essentially his birthright, for his father and grandfather before him were reputable men. To an extent Brown functions as the common American man who cherishes the history of a country and family name bestowed onto him while lamenting obligation. Goodman encounters the conflict of masculinity explicitly, not only does he carry a highly regarded family name, but he also is not privy to innocence and blind faith like his wife. Faith is pink, childlike, and unknowing of darkness or doubt. Faith represents the impossibility of unadulterated belief, for it is remarkably unlikely for a mature adult to be so ignorant of life’s tribulations. However, in Young Goodman Brown unadulterated faith is presented as the only pious option even though doubt is inevitable and pervasive. Doubt and the darkness lingering in the forest have, in fact, reached nearly the whole town. There in the woods “the good shrank not from the wicked”(85). In reality, there is no clear divide between good and evil, thus there is no clear divide between faith and doubt. Such a statement, a refusal of dichotomy,…

    • 405 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    There are many people who have a fear of having to grow up. When a child grows up their innocence starts to fade away. It is something that happens no matter how much someone wants to keep it. Some people cannot accept the fact that growing up is a part of life. That as one grows up they learn and understand things that they did not when they were children. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield is the protagonist who is not too keen of having to grow up. Throughout the novel this fear is shown. He is caught between being a child and turning to an adult. He knows that growing up is something that going to happen no matter what. There is no way he could prevent or at least help the children from losing their innocence. But he still wants to be able to try and do something about it. He wants to be the catcher in the rye and preserve the innocence of the children. Holden Caulfield’s protection of innocence can be seen through his talks about the Museum of Natural History, Jane Gallagher and Phoebe, but he…

    • 1260 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Earnest Hemingway states that “all things truly wicked start from innocence.” This quote applies to Mayella Ewell as she corrupted herself and her innocence throughout To Kill a Mockingbird. Though Mayella may seem wholesome, she is a wolf in sheep’s clothing due to her part in the death of a virtuous, innocent man and then her part in the tormenting of the dead man’s wife. In chapter twenty-five, Scout realizes that “Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed,” (Lee 323) while she was pondering how a clearly innocent man could be tried as guilty (Lee 323). This quote illustrates how Mayella seemingly did worse than kill a man; she also had him declared guilty of a false crime, staining his reputation. To outsiders it will seem as if he was righteously killed, and what…

    • 415 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Every child will lose their innocence one day and it is something that is unavoidable. This happens when a child explores the real world and that they realize that it is nothing like a fairy tale. In the novel Lord of the Flies, written by William Golding, a group of English kids (five to twelve years old) are stranded on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This was caused by a horrible plane crash. They are stuck there with no help or any adults. They eventually get rescued. Even if they know that they’re going back to civilization, they know that nothing will be the same as before they came to the island because they lost their innocence. In the novel Lord of the Flies, the boys’ loss their…

    • 948 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The evidence that Brown may never have the capacity to come back to the way his assumed mind of innocence is proposed by the way that the forest closes quickly behind him. The dejection of the forest symbolizes a life without faith. The trail is long and blustery, which symbolizes the profundity Goodman Brown's conscious mind must travel far from guiltlessness to have the capacity to appreciate the evil that is in him, he knows the evil is within in but instead interprets it to the world like saying the whole word is evil instead of his, stating that nobody is good in the world. Goodman Brown is mindful of his evil nature and this is made clear when he expected that his faith is something that can be changed and later grabbed voluntarily. The darkness that is in Goodman Brown's heart speaks to his portrayal of the forest. The wearisome state of mind looks somewhat like Brown as the depictions turns out to be more distinctive the more profound he walks into the forest. “The forest, symbol of Brown's retreat into himself, is associated with images suggestive of evil” (Hurley 413). Goodman Brown through his own evil nature drives himself into a dream where he is cut from humankind with just the devil as his…

    • 739 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, “Young Goodman Brown” the author retells the Adam and Eve story a twist. The temptation of evil and the search for knowledge are evident in "Young Goodman Brown." However, Hawthorne's biblical references to Adam and Eve, are inverted..…

    • 369 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The supernatural scenes of the devil, the time when Brown sees Goody Cloyse, and how the nightmare effects Brown are reasons why Goodman Brown had a dream in the forest of a witches'…

    • 537 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Wrongful Convictions

    • 939 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Way too many innocent people have been put behind bars for absolutely doing nothing. Some people are just at the wrong places at the wrong time but others are framed. In this essay I will talk about a case that put an innocent man behind bars. Eyewitness Misidentification, bad lawyering and Government Misconduct all lead to his demise. These three things are reasons why an innocent person can end up behind bars for nothing. It bothers me because this could happen to anyone, to me, a family member, and even friends. These problems need to be fixed but I’m afraid they might not ever be. If I could change certain things the rate of wrongful convictions would drop tremendously.…

    • 939 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays