A Test of Faith. Innocence and perfection, temptation and murder, destruction and

Transcription

1 Loder 1 Rachel Loder Sarah O Hara Writing May 2013 A Test of Faith Innocence and perfection, temptation and murder, destruction and redemption will all lead to the true meaning of faith and salvation. Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne is... the story of a man, young and naïve in the ways of the world... (Walsh). As he takes a journey into the wilderness, he finds that his idea about faith and what it takes to get to heaven are not on the same level as actuality. As he continues on his journey, he will endure events that will be life changing for him, will result in a different view of life, and will provide a huge reality check. A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O Connor is the story of a grandmother and her superficial beliefs of faith. As her and her family travel to Florida and get into a car accident, The Misfit, a killer who had escaped from jail, will encounter them and will present the grandmother with a dangerous and threatening situation. Although the story starts off as a satire of a typical family vacation, it becomes a tale of cold-blooded murder as the focus narrows to the Misfit and the Grandmother, where the grandmother will go through an internal life change for the better (Piedmont-Marton). In, Young Goodman Brown and A Good Man is Hard to Find, both Brown and the grandmother believe in their salvation, find their faith tested, but while Brown s faith is destroyed, the grandmother s faith is redeemed.

2 Loder 2 Goodman Brown is everyman of average intelligence who is striving to live the good life, (McKeithan 235). In the beginning of the story, Young Goodman Brown, Goodman Brown is a Puritan who contains an innocent faith in which he lives for and his wife, Faith, is a representation of his faith. And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap while she called to Goodman Brown, (Hawthorne). Her pink ribbons and Hawthorne s use of the word play, give a child-like feel to his faith, implying his innocence of faith. When he meets up with the Old Man at the edge of the wilderness and is told that he is late, Goodman Brown s reply is, Faith kept me back a while, (Hawthorne). The fact that his faith kept him back a while also shows that he has an innocent faith. He has been married to Faith for only three months, entailing that his faith is still new and fresh. His first name in the story being, Young, also supports his new and young faith. Goodman Brown also believes in his salvation and thinks he knows how to get to heaven, which is by being a good man. His middle name in the story being, Goodman, represents that goodness quality. He considers himself a good man because he, along with his townspeople, is a person of prayer, works hard, and does not consent to evil. What he does not realize is that there is no good man except for Christ himself, and in order to receive salvation as a Puritan, one must know that every person is a sinner and they need God s grace to be saved. Puritans must live according to the bible and the Word of God (Finley). Brown s thought of how to get to heaven not only shows his immaturity, but also supports his innocent faith. His

3 Loder 3 faith is soon to be inspected when he takes his Journey of Justification, which is a journey to justify a person s faith. It is also supposed to help a person to be less mournful about their sins and to be able to live with themselves and other because sin is a part of everyone. Goodman Brown s innocent faith and his goodness reserve him a spot in heaven. While Young Goodman Brown holds an innocent faith, the grandmother sees herself as obtaining the perfect faith. In the beginning of the story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, the grandmother thinks she has the perfect faith and is a good woman.... but the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim... (O Connor). The grandmother is a southern stereotype in that she is cautious, devious, indirect, and afraid of the unfamiliar. She is also vain and obsessed with the trappings of class, (Piedmont-Marton). The grandmother s hat is a symbol of her faith because back in the olden days, women always wore hats to church, and a woman s humility was shown through her hat. The grandmother s misinterpretation is that the more extravagant the hat, the stronger the faith and instead of the hat representing her humility, it represents her pride. Her hat is in perfect shape and has white violets on the brim showing her purity and piety. Along with her perfect faith, the grandmother believes in her salvation and seems to know the answer of how to get to heaven and because of the notion of charm and thoughtfulness towards people; she awards the South (Renner). Certainly we know from the first half of the story that the grandmother has seen herself as a good woman and a good woman in a day when good men

4 Loder 4 and women are hard to find, when people are disrespectful and dishonest, when they are not nice like they used to be, (Stephens 198). The grandmother, who is stuck in the past, considers herself to be a good woman because of her southern heritage. She thinks that in order to be saved, one must have class and good blood. She does not realize that salvation does not have to do with class and good blood because no one has good blood except for Christ. As she looks at her son and daughter-in-law who basically ignore her, and her disrespectful grandchildren, she sees herself as a good woman. In her eyes, her faith is perfect and she is a good, classy woman, so she has a ticket into heaven. Goodman Brown finds his faith tested by the Old Man who is also known as the Devil. As he travels into the wilderness on his Journey of Justification, he is the immature young man who fails to understand the gravity of the step he has taken, (Levy). He was not loyal to Faith, though he fully expected to be loyal after just one more indulgence in sin, (McKeithan 235). As his journey continues, he begins to think about whether he should continue on or turn back. When Goodman Brown mentions that he does not want to be the first Brown to take this path The Old Man says, I have been as well acquainted with your family as with ever a one among the Puritans; and that s no trifle to say, (Hawthorne). After hearing this, Goodman Brown is convinced and Instead of breaking off promptly, he continued to indulge in sin longer than he had expected... (McKeithan 236). He begins to see the good people of his town, Salem Village, walking through the wilderness, causing his loss of faith,... which he gradually loses as he doubts more and more the existence of any goodness in man, (Walsh). Not only had he

5 Loder 5 began to doubt goodness in man, but his idea of how to get to heaven was being falsified. Young Goodman Brown caught hold of a tree for support, being ready to sink down on the ground, faint and overburdened with the heavy sickness of his heart. He looked up to the sky, doubting whether there really was a heaven above him, (Hawthorne). After giving into the temptations of the Devil and sin, he ends up at the Witch s Sabbath where all of his townspeople are. At the Sabbath, Goodman Brown s faith is put to the ultimate test when the Devil tells him about all of the sin that goes on in his town. He sees all of his people there except for one person, Faith. His parents were even there and were warning him. The Devil introduces him to his true race showing that original sin cannot be overcome and he must accept the fact that he is a sinner just like everybody else. Goodman Brown completely ignores the last test of his faith. Just as Young Goodman Brown s faith is tested, the grandmother has hers tested as well. The grandmother finds her faith tested and... is far from what she thinks she is, and thus she personifies a culture whose pretensions of honorable gentility are belied by reality. C. R. Kropf has rightly seen her as another misfit, and so is the aspect of the South she personifies, (Renner). On their way to Florida, she has a memory about an old plantation just outside of Toombsboro. She knows where the dirt road is that leads to the house and

6 Loder 6 convinces her son to take them their and on their way, an accident occurs. Before the accident, the grandmother comes to realization that the plantation is not even there and is actually in another state, showing that she is truly a liar. They end up in a ditch where The Misfit and his sidekicks find them. As his men kill the grandmother s family off one by one, her faith begins to fade. The grandmother reached up to adjust her hat brim as if she were going to the woods with him but it came off in her hand. She stood staring at it and after a second she let it fall on the ground, (O Connor). Her perfect hat had fallen apart along with her perfect faith.... the grandmother is an ironic embodiment of the South of the good old days, when people were God-fearing, genteel, courteous, hospitable, charitable, and honest--in a word, good, (Renner), but She is unable to see herself as the habitual liar she is, (McDermott). When the grandmother is the only one left, it is just she and The Misfit. They begin a conversation and she continuously tells him that he is a good man, has good blood, and that he should pray. At this point of the story, she is a hypocrite because she should be praying herself while a killer is standing in front of her and her life is at stake. During the discussion, the grandmother says, You wouldn t shot a lady, would you? (O Connor) in her attempt to help him see that he is a good man and always has been.... the grandmother s encounter with The Misfit presents her with the supreme test and the supreme opportunity that every human being must face: the moment of death, (Kaplan). As the grandmother is facing a malevolent and evil death, Her ability to accept such a death is therefore the supreme test of her faith, (Kaplan).

7 Loder 7 After Goodman Brown attends the Witch s Sabbath, he finds that his faith has been completely destroyed. Brown has confronted, as surely all men must at one time or another, that great power of blackness and is forever after dominated by its effects, (Abcarian). Not only does he no longer have any faith, but also he cannot look at any of his fellow townspeople the same. Brown came eventually to judge others by himself: he thought them sinful and hypocritical because he was sinful and hypocritical himself, (McKeithan 235). During the Sabbath, Goodman Brown... cast one look at his pale wife, and Faith at him, and then he cried, Faith! Faith! Look up to heaven, and resist the wicked one, (Hawthorne). Instead of looking at all of the people who were sinful, like The Devil directed him to do, and grasping that he is also sinful and is not alone, he looked up and ignored everything, failing to complete his Journey of Justification. When Goodman Brown s faith is put to the final test, he ignores it and fails. He returns to the village and his wife after awakening in the wilderness and Finally, he is reunited with her again for the duration of his life, but unhappily, his only alternative to full-scale evil is a life of gloom and misanthropy, (Ellis). Goodman Brown still saw himself as a good man and saw every other person as wretched sinners, causing him to be sickened by all of his townspeople. All family and community relationships have been poisoned, and if he can be said to retain his faith, he appears to have lost hope completely, (Ellis). He now sees the lessons taught in church as profanity and feels that the roof is going to collapse on his head. Goodman Brown has, along with losing his faith, lost his faith in all of mankind.

8 Loder 8 Brown's heart, having closed the valves of its attention, disintegrates in a region of gloomy despair and distrust where the hope and affirmation offered by saintly lives and triumphant deaths cannot penetrate, (Abcarian). By the end of the story, Young Goodman Brown, his innocent faith and reason for living has been corrupted and destroyed, while the view of his wife, Faith, has also been corrupted and destroyed. Often, awaking suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith; and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled and muttered to himself, and gazed at the his wife, and turned away, (Hawthorne). He lived a miserable life and passed away with anguish and no place reserved for him in heaven. While the faith of Young Goodman Brown is less fortunate, the grandmother s faith is more auspicious. While the grandmother is facing death by a cold-blooded murderer, it gives her a chance for redemption of her faith. Not only is she facing death, but is facing an evil death and she must be able to handle the situation. The conversation between her and The Misfit is her map to finding her redemption and One senses that this conversation even though our attention is in reality fastened upon the horrible acts that are taking place in the background (and apparently against the thrust of the story) is meant to be the real center of the story and the part in which the point, as it were, of the whole tale lies, (Stephens 198).

9 Loder 9 As the climax draws nearer, the grandmother becomes more and more afraid. She pushes and pushes the fact that Jesus will help The Misfit if he would just pray and have faith and he continues to tell her that he cannot believe because he has been searching for answers to why things happen to him, but he has found no answers. He is a person who needs to know what to believe and why he should believe. When the grandmother, a woman of many words, becomes speechless, and after her head clears, she finally says, Why you re one of my babies. You re one of my own children! (O Connor). She reaches out for a sincere gesture, but The Misfit is caught off guard and shoots her three times. The three shots represent the name of the Father, the name of the Son, and the Holy Spirit in which The Misfit denies and the grandmother embraces. In reality, The Misfit was the grandmother s savior. That the grandmother at the moment of death truly embraces the Christian mystery is her great triumph, (Kaplan). The Misfit has shredded her condescending attitude and by doing so is able to see the light of the sun (heretofore hidden to her), the light of self-analysis which she had blocked by her over-weaning pride, (McDermott). Under the pressure of death, the grandmother learned the true meaning of faith and Christianity. She would have been a good woman, The Misfit said, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life, (O Connor). She has been rid of her hypocritical past and has reached redemption.... the grandmother who half sat and half lay in a puddle of blood with her legs crossed under her like a child s and her face smiling up at the cloudless sky, (O Connor). The grandmother has restored her faith, ensured her life in heaven, and is using her one-way ticket to go home.

10 Loder 10 In, Young Goodman Brown and A Good Man is Hard to Find, both Brown and the grandmother believe in their salvation, find their faith tested, but while Brown s faith is destroyed, the grandmother s faith is redeemed. Throughout Young Goodman Brown, Goodman Brown finds that his faith is not so innocent and that his idea of getting to heaven is not so realistic. His salvation is also not up to par because he has yet to know the meaning of being saved. As the Devil tests Goodman Brown s faith and he gives into temptation, it also fades away, along with his faith in all of humanity. Goodman Brown learns that being a good man is not good enough and that every person is sinful, although he does not grasp the fact that he is one of those sinful people. Therefore, he lives a terrible life filled with sorrow and his innocent faith is demolished. However, throughout A Good Man is Hard to Find, the grandmother finds that her faith is not so perfect and that her idea of getting to heaven is also not realistic, but she has a better outcome. She continuously says to pray, but does not do so herself. Her salvation is at risk because she does not practice the acts that she preaches about. As her faith gets tested, it is lost, but is redeemed in the end. She learns that not only must a woman be a good woman, but a woman must also practice what she preaches. In her attempt to show The Misfit that he is truly a good man, her faith is redeemed, as she dies a murderous death. Through her sincere gesture and being under pressure, she finds and now understands the true meaning of faith. While Young Goodman Brown finds his faith less flourishing, the grandmother finds her faith very victorious.

11 Loder 11 Works Cited Abcarian, Richard. "The Ending of 'Young Goodman Brown'." Studies in Short Fiction 3.3 (Spring 1966): Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Anna J. Sheets. Vol. 29. Detroit: Gale Research, Literature Resource Center. Web. 16 Apr Ellis, Robert P. "Young Goodman Brown." Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition (2004): 1-3. Literary Reference Center. Web. 16 Apr Finley, Gavin. "GUTENBERG, BIBLE TRANSLATORS, REFORMATION AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE ENGLISH PURITANS IN THE 1500'S." GUTENBERG, BIBLE TRANSLATORS, REFORMATION AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE ENGLISH PURITANS IN THE 1500'S. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Apr Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Short Stories: Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne." Short Stories: Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Short Stories, n.d. Web. 16 Apr Kaplan, Carola M. "A Good Man Is Hard To Find." Masterplots II: Short Story Series, Revised Edition (2004): 1-3. Literary Reference Center. Web. 16 Apr Levy, Leo B. "The Problem of Faith in 'Young Goodman Brown'." JEGP: Journal of English and Germanic Philology 74.3 (July 1975): Rpt. in Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Ed. Juliet Byington. Vol. 95. Detroit: Gale Group, Literature Resource Center. Web. 16 Apr McDermott, John V. "Flannery O'Connor's Validation of the Unreasonable in 'A Good Man Is Hard To Find'." Notes on Contemporary Literature 40.1 (2010). Literature Resource Center. Web. 16 Apr

12 Loder 12 McKeithan, D. M. "Young Goodman Brown." Short Story Criticism. Vol. 29. [Detroit, Mich.]: Gale Research, Print. O'Connor, Flannery. "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." A Good Man Is Hard to Find. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Apr Piedmont-Marton, Elisabeth. "An Overview of 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find'." Short Stories for Students. Detroit: Gale, Literature Resource Center. Web. 16 Apr Renner, Stanley. "Secular Meaning in 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find'." College Literature 9.2 (1982): Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol Detroit: Gale, Literature Resource Center. Web. 16 Apr Stephens, Martha. "A Good Man Is Hard to Find." Short Story Criticism. Vol. 23. [Detroit, Mich.]: Gale Research, Print. Walsh, Thomas F., Jr. "The Bedeviling of Young Goodman Brown." Modern Language Quarterly 19.4 (Dec. 1958): Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Anna J. Sheets. Vol. 29. Detroit: Gale Research, Literature Resource Center. Web. 16 Apr