Monday 19 May 2014

What quote from the story shows that Young Goodman Brown's name is ironic?

There are a few good quotes which might illuminate the ironic nature of Young Goodman Brown's name. I will present a few below with my comments:



...and after this one night, I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to Heaven...With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt himself justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose.


We have been a race of honest men and good Christians, since the days of the martyrs. And shall I be the first of the name of Brown, that ever took this path and kept--


And when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave, a hoary corpse, followed by Faith, an aged woman, and children and grand-children, a goodly procession, besides neighbors, not a few, they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone; for his dying hour was gloom.



From the quotes above, you can see that Young Goodman Brown is an ironic name for our protagonist. He leaves his wife, Faith, behind to fulfill an evil errand. This action is a symbolic representation of Goodman Brown setting aside his own Puritan values to delve into the realm of the mysterious and the world of innate evil.


Dark romantic works of the 19th century often centered on a repudiation of the Transcendentalist doctrine of human infallibility. The world is portrayed with pessimism and gloomy foreboding in these works. In our story, Goodman Brown finds his world turned upside down when he discovers that his own father and grandfather participated in the Puritan persecution of the Quakers as well as the atrocities in King Phillip's War. Goodman Brown is visibly shaken by these so-called revelations of the depravity inherent in his family history. Meanwhile, he himself seeks to participate in the machinations of a macabre ceremony, presided over by the Devil and witches of ill-repute.


To Goodman Brown, it seems as if everyone he has ever respected is at the demonic congregation of souls. The end result of his 'experience' renders him a pitiful facsimile of the once confident and trustful young husband that he was. In the end, his dying hour speaks of despair and hopelessness, by all representations, an ironic and unfortunate development, in spite of the positive connotations in his given name.

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