Young Goodman Brown Rhetorical Analysis
No one escapes Nathanial Hawthorne had a way of intertwining imagery and symbolism into one. He could put the two together to create an ominous mood throughout his story “Young Goodman Brown”. The focus on the use of symbolism and imagery helps imply the theme, that no one can escape sin, in the story. Hawthorne uses this theme to denounce puritan attitudes and hypocrisy. The imagery gives off a sense of no hope for any kind of happy ending. A melancholy and sinister feel throughout the entire story.
He had taken a dreary road, darken by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind. It was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveler knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that with lonely footsteps he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude.
(Hawthorne)
This is what sets the tone for the rest of the story. The images that Hawthorne writes in this passage show Goodman Brown’s character becoming a depressing figure. That is significant because with imagery that is depressing it sets Goodman Brown’s journey as more of an on purpose than a naive accident. This can also suggest that the temptation of sin is too …show more content…
On the Sabbath day, when the congregation were singing holy psalm, he could not listen because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear and drowned all the blessed strain. When the minister spoke from the pulpit with power and fervid eloquence, and, with his hand on the open Bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives and triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman Brown turn pale, dreading lest the roof should thunder down upon the grey blasphemer and his
He had taken a dreary road, darken by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind. It was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveler knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that with lonely footsteps he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude.
(Hawthorne)
This is what sets the tone for the rest of the story. The images that Hawthorne writes in this passage show Goodman Brown’s character becoming a depressing figure. That is significant because with imagery that is depressing it sets Goodman Brown’s journey as more of an on purpose than a naive accident. This can also suggest that the temptation of sin is too …show more content…
On the Sabbath day, when the congregation were singing holy psalm, he could not listen because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear and drowned all the blessed strain. When the minister spoke from the pulpit with power and fervid eloquence, and, with his hand on the open Bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives and triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman Brown turn pale, dreading lest the roof should thunder down upon the grey blasphemer and his