Thursday 14 January 2010

Does the short story "Young Goodman Brown" demonstrate the devil's claim that "Evil is the nature of mankind"? Explain the concept of evil in the...

The story
demonstrates that evil is the nature of mankind in two ways: first, Brown is evil in rejecting
his faith (Faith) that people can also be good; and second by the fact all people in the story
participate in evil in some way. This fact, however, does not cancel the fact that people might
also be good. What the devil does not say is that goodness is also the nature of mankind, but
the lives the people in the village lead demonstrate this. It is not that they are hypocrites;
rather they are both good and evil, for such is the real human condition as a result of our fall
from Paradise (within the context of the theme of the story). Hawthorne wants us to understand
this dualism in which we all share: we are simultaneously good and evil, and to reject one or
the other results in alienation from the greater community of humankind. Not to accept this
results in distrust, and not to realize the possibilities of our dark side results in
hypocrisy. Thesealienation from others and hypocrisyare, in Hawthornes view, the greatest
sins.

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