Young Goodman Brown

The tale is set in a small village of Salem in near Boston. The settlers are the early 17th century puritans who came from England. The puritans are English Protestants whose lives are very much influenced by Christianity. Christian belief had influenced the morality of the townsmen. The protagonist Goodman Brown is an interesting name that Hawthorne chose in this story. We could almost predict by reading the few paragraphs that the story is going to be about the character of Goodman. In the story Goodman leaves his wife Faith, to meet a mysterious figure in the woods. Leaving his wife Faith is allegorical to leaving the Christian belief or having lost faith in God. So the mysterious man who we can relate to the Devil himself can be compared to temptations that people have in daily life. As the Goodman travels through the forest with the mysterious man he finds he is not alone in the quest. His discovers that the people highly regarded for being devout Christians and being very kind and moral are walking along with the mysterious guy. He does not want to proceed with the group and he often looks back thinking about his wife. He is surprised to see his wife Faith proceeding with the group. This is done by the author to create dilemma because Goodman has to either follow his wife Faith or follow his religious faith. This is very much practical in our daily life where we have to decide whether we follow certain things because everyone else does or we follow only the things we like to. Finally, he denies his loyalty to the mysterious man and tells his wife to fight the devil that is trying to take her away. He wakes up middle of the forest and when he returns he finds everyone acting normal. This story is about the power of one’s belief and Goodman like his name is very Good and loyal to his wife Faith and his faith in Christianity. This story can be linked to the infamous witch trials of Salem. As Goodman had abandoned the path shown by the devil and listened to him, the author would want to send a message to people that it is not always the best to follow others like the ones who followed others in those witch trials. There are many gothic elements like the mysterious guy who looks like how devil would look like, a staff that became a serpent and various other images that incite aghast. Here human nature is shown to be flawed but the flaw can be fixed by listening to self rather than others. Here the author has shown that goodness of a person can always overcome the evil nature. This is a very important point the author is trying to make. The tone of the story is simple and easy to understand. The imagery used by the author might make more sense to people who know more about the Christian belief system and other stories about Christianity.

The legend of Sleepy Hollow---never lose a head!!

The setting of the legend of sleepy hollow is the period of early settlers. The early settlers were very fond of listening to stories and particularly that were supernatural. As there were exploring the unexplored, the supernatural phenomenon was a very popular topic of discussion among the settlers. The small town of Sleepy Hollow had growing fear of the unexplained and particularly a Horseman without a head. The introduction of the protagonist Ichabod Crane as a school teacher would be perfect thing to do as a school teacher ideally relies on scientific inquiry rather than believe on heresy. Ironically he tells stories of Ghosts and goblins himself to the women of the town to impress them. He is not the best candidate to be a teacher as he has many personality flaws. One of the women he falls for uses him as a bait to attract Brom Bones who is stronger and more appealing than him. This makes him leave a place of social gathering while all the thoughts of the ghastly stories come up to his mind. On a horse named Daredevil he rides back with his head full of tales of horror. Daredevil is a good name of the horse as it represents the irony of situation Crane is in. He is scared for his life as he finds the Headless horseman chasing him. I would suspect that this was the fragment of his imagination as he was very willing to believe the stories that told and it became real when he was most vulnerable, having a broken heart. This story is an allegory as we can say that anyone who stops to think will lose their heads. Here the school master was a victim of situation that he created in his head and eventually he lost it. It was a short story but certainly a classic. It was a good read.

Midterm Ends ----ૐ

Short stories after midterm

"The Immortal Mortal" vs "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde"

The two short stories we read were quite interesting. The Immortal Mortal was written by Mary Shelley and it is about a protagonist who lives through the pain of not dying soon enough. The alchemist Cornelius who wishes to perfect the potion that would make man immortal had taken Winzy as his apprentice. Winzy loved Bertha very much but his love was weakened by his poverty and the matriarch who would not approve of their marriage. He believed Cornelius was trying to make a potion to cure love. So he drinks the potion but soon finds out that there was no such thing. This is the Irony of situation as he discovers that instead he gets the curse of being immortal. In this story humanity is believed to be weak which relies on death, the mysterious friend, to help free everyone form the perils of aging. Winzy finds out that he was not immortal but he was aging slower. This is an irony as he soon finds out living a long life has its own disadvantages as he finds out his beloved Bertha becoming older and dying and he had been the same all those years. I found that cure of love is death and immortality makes it even worse. If a person can grow older with the loved one that is the best cure for love. The theme of this story is that humans may appear weak with death but they are miserable without it. Death is portrayed as an essential part of life as it would end all the misery of being old and helpless.

Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a story written by Robert Stevenson. In this story Dr. Jekyll creates a substance that makes him able to transform into a short stumpy and deformed Mr. Hyde. The scientist creates doppelganger of himself to enable him to escape morality. Transformation makes Dr Jekyll be this character which does not have conscience. Mr. Hyde does not worry about the consequences of his actions as he does not care about how others feeling or even the authority. This gives him more freedom to do things without Dr Jekyll getting the blame even though they are the same people. The story is a satire to the Victorian society which pretends to be flawless from the outside but is very unforgiving in the inside. The dual nature of man kind of hints us to the fact that there is a good side and a bad side of everything. There is a reference of Dr Jekyll going to church and trying to gather his acts to be a better Christian while Hyde was acting beyond his conscience.

In both of the stories human nature is portrayed as being imperfect. So they need to create a magical potion to transform into this being which would ideally be free from the imperfections. In the first one imperfection is death or mortality while in the second story it is the morality of humans. We can draw parallels to these stories as we find that there is the use of alchemy or science to make humans able to cheat death or transform into an anomaly that is not confined within the social norms, as we discover in some way Winzy and Hyde defy social norms in their own ways.