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Young Goodman Brown

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Suzanne

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Re: Young Goodman Brown

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Wow, wouldn't YGB be a great story to tell around the fire at night while camping!
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geo

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Re: Young Goodman Brown

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DWill wrote:Twain was still writiing partly in the tradition of the tale, while his exact contemporary Henry James had pioneered (for Americans) the literary short story. Twain's stories would lend themselves well to oral reading, while for me, at least, James is to be read silently.
Very interesting observation, Dwill. I would agree that it would be very difficult to listen to listen to, say, an audiobook of Henry James's stories while Twain's would probably work great.
Suzanne wrote:
Suzanne wrote:If you read it as if it were a dream, I think it changes the overall outcome, or the overall feeling. For Brown to have this dream would suggest to me that he was predisposed to evil, and the dream featuring people from the church would somehow justify this evil.
No, this is wrong, it is backwards. Brown has lost faith and hope in humanity due to the injustices commited on innocent people during the witch trials of Salem. He is predisposed to believing that people are primarily good, but because of the horror he sees in Salem, he realizes that he can no longer distinquish between good and evil. Hmm . . .
Yes! Maybe! On the Avatar thread someone mentioned that we are still trying to come to terms with atrocities committed against Native Americans and as such we wish to reenact in story form these kinds of conflicts so that we can make sense of them. Nathaniel Hawthorne was fascinated with the Salem witch trials and possibly the role his own grandfather played. There's a certain pathos when you read the story with this in mind and you can see poor Hawthorne trying to understand the nature of good and evil and especially of the hypocrisies in religion. Many of us believe that humans are basically good, but others believe our goodness is only a veneer and that when the chips are down and survival is at stake we are capable of doing horrible things.
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oblivion

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Re: Young Goodman Brown

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He was definitely working out, or trying to work out, what could have happened to to cause these atrocities (Suzy Witten, are you out there?) But he was also obviously trying to figure out, rather obviously, if Faith was a good thing or bad thing, something to be trusted or not, but nevertheless something that would not leave you or you it. You were stuck with it, good or bad. It's worthwhile reading other Hawthorne stories, especially "Rappacini's Daughter" and I enjoy comparing the subtle horror, the doubt, of Hawthorne to the more blatant, more up-front horror of Poe. But the subtlety of both writers is one reason I adore them but immensely dislike S. King.
Gods and spirits are parasitic--Pascal Boyer

Religion is the only force in the world that lets a person have his prejudice or hatred and feel good about it --S C Hitchcock

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. --André Gide

Reading is a majority skill but a minority art. --Julian Barnes
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DWill

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Re: Young Goodman Brown

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I thought it was interesting to read that Hawthorne also had an eye on what was happening in his own time, as he wrote YGB. The Second Great Awakening was occurring, so unlike what I had assumed, Hawthorne bringing this story out wasn't just a comment on a along-past episode of our history, but could have spoken to the growing fervor he himself observed in religion.
Suzy Witten
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Re: Young Goodman Brown

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Suzanne suggested I post this info here about my book THE AFFLICTED GIRLS:

THE AFFLICTED GIRLS makes Amazon list of recommended books about Salem
Here is the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Recommended-Books ... KX8CM7V4KV

It is one of 2 novels on this list. All the rest are academic non-fiction histories.
The list was compiled by noted Salem historian M. M. Drymon (she posts on Amazon as "Witch Mark")

Suzy
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giselle

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Re: Young Goodman Brown

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Hawthorne manages to cram a great deal into 8 pages, an exploration of a man's soul, the place of the church and its 'soul', good and evil through the Puritan lens and the lens of surrounding society and still make the story entertaining and creepy. Like Suzanne said, good fodder for sitting around the campfire on a dark night. He closes with an epilogue, which takes the reader into the future, not just the future of Goodman Brown, but of the society he lives in. Given the grip of the Puritan church, perhaps Hawthorne is wondering if Salem can throw off the legacy of the witch trials and the entrenched Puritanical thinking that went with it ? Well, about 150 years have passed and I guess it has not. The first thing that drew me to read this story was the Salem/witch trial connection. I haven't been to Salem but a quick look at their website tells me that witch tourism is alive and well, including modern day witchery. Somehow, I think Hawthorne would approve.
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Re: Young Goodman Brown

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After reading your post, Giselle, I read Young Goodman Brown for the first time. It definitely has the same "flavor" as my book, THE AFFLICTED GIRLS,which also addresses corruption of the soul in Salem. My point of view and Hawthorne's are similar on some points, different on others, which Oblivion first pointed out. As I'd never read this short story before, I really enjoyed it. So much of what Salem was was so expertly crammed into these descriptive eight pages, who but a genius can do that? Suzy
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Re: Young Goodman Brown

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YGB is both allegory and satire, to my thinking. The allegory is obvious, as allegory always is. The satire, concerning the religious obsessions and hypocrisies of the Puritans, is broad and fairly entertaining. I don't see much psychological coherence or depth here, unlike in Hawthorne's masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter.
I pretty much agree with DWill here. As was said before, allegory and irony are the keynotes of "Young Goodman Brown." Someone said somewhere that Hawthorn always gave his character's meaningful names.

This does not have the depth or subtly of The Scarlet Letter but it is more of a slap in the face of Puritan hypocrites. Brown's suspicion of his wife hurts her, this neighbors, but mostly himself.
--Gary

"Freedom is feeling easy in your harness" --Robert Frost
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