Every day, people fight an invisible battle in their mind. According to Sigmund Freud,

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1 Igl 1 Natasha Igl Pennington English 305 October 5 th, 2016 Young Goodman Brown vs. the Id Every day, people fight an invisible battle in their mind. According to Sigmund Freud, people s minds are made up of three different parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id and the superego conflict with each other with the ego mediating between the two. Because of this conflict, stress is put on the ego in having to constantly intercede. Nathaniel Hawthorne s piece, Young Goodman Brown, shows the underlying struggle of the ego living with the battle between the id and superego. Relating Freud s three mind parts to Hawthorne s work, Goodman Brown acts as the ego while the superego is found in his religious beliefs and the id in the Devil. Comment [1]: other,? Comment [2]: for? Comment [3]: within Comment [4]: of Comment [5]: parts of the mind Comment [6]: beliefs, Through Goodman Brown s walk with the Devil, he demonstrates the struggle that is put on the ego in reconciling between the superego, his faith, and the id, the Devil. One way to define the superego is shown through Goodman Brown s faith. The superego is a person s moral conscience or Jiminy Cricket. Through a person s superego, they learn to define right from and wrong (Pennington-Cordell Sect. 3.3). Faith in religion is a strong influence on a person s sense of morals. Goodman Brown s moral compass rears its head as he walks with the Devil. As they walk, he constantly tries to persuade the Devil of the Comment [7]: maybe just say ego and id or faith and devil Comment [8]: Nice clear thesis Comment [9]: Make this more declarative, you just defined it in your opening as his faith so make it more assertive by saying this is what the superego is instead of saying this is just one way of thinking about it Comment [10]: is jimmy cricket actually part of the story or is this a disney reference? if it is just the reference make it clear Comment [11]: typo? Comment [12]: nice righteousness of the Puritan people. We are a people of prayer, and good works to boot, and abide no such wickedness (Hawthorne 5). Another instance, he calls on his family s past. Comment [13]: In another We have been a race of honest men and good Christians since the days of the martyrs

2 Igl 2 (Hawthorne 4). The root of his religion tries to dissuade the Devil from continuing their walk. With heaven above and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the devil! (Hawthorne 8). When he continues to provide arguments to the Devil, he feels at home with his conscience. The young man sat a few moments thinking how clear a conscience he should meet the minister in his morning walk, nor shrink from the eye of good old Deacon Gookin (Hawthorne 7). As the Devil tries to turn Goodman Brown on his side, Goodman Brown remains stubborn to his faith. What if a wretched old woman do choose to go to the devil when I thought she was going to heaven: is that any reason why I should quit my death Faith and go after her? (Hawthorne 7). Representing the id as the Devil, Goodman Brown struggles with walking with him and is shown the fall of others to their ids. As they come across his old catechism teacher, Goody Cloyse, the Devil reveals she is not all prayers and holiness. Then Goody Cloyse knows her old friend? (Hawthorne 6). From the Devil s comment, it is shown that Goody Cloyse has a closer relationship to the Devil than one would perceive. Hawthorne writes her in the likeness of Comment [14]: Trying to dissuade the devil from continuing their walk, Brown shares the roots of his religion with high hopes or something like that your sentence seems backwards to me Comment [15]: proper MLA in text would have you say "walk: "'with..." Comment [16]: try and use a different word bc conscience is in the quote Comment [17]: remember to tie this to freud as you go Comment [18]: : Comment [19]: make sure this is the exact quote bc the sentence doesn't make sense Comment [20]: : Comment [21]: don't forget to include an analysis of each quote after you include the quote. this is where you should say "yeah this quote i just used, this is how it fits freuds theories" Comment [22]: agree, explain quote Comment [23]: weird wording Comment [24]: whole sentence is weirdly worded like it was a rushed topic sentence Comment [25]: reword to be more specific and explicit in what you're going to talk about in this paragraph Comment [26]: : a witch, searching for her broom and potions. Eventually, the entire town appears to be in cahoots with the Devil. Among them appeared faces that would be seen next day at the council board of the province, and others which, Sabbath after Sabbath, looked devoutly heavenward, and benignantly over the crowded pews from the holiest pulpits in the land (Hawthorne 10). Goodman Brown looks despairingly on as he tries to compute what he sees with what he has presently believed. The Devil proceeds to define the bare nature of the id during the initiation of the gathering. Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race (Hawthorne 12). Comment [27]: connect your quote to the sentence either with a colon or "the town is in cahoots with the Devil, as Hawthorne specifies 'among them..." a quote should never be its own sentence Comment [28]: how is all of this related to the id Comment [29]: do you mean reconcile? put together? Comment [30]: again, connect quote to sentence

3 Following this statement, Goodman Brown is presented with the problem of the id. The id is the Igl 3 more basic instinct of a person (Pennington-Cordell Sect. 3.3). Acting on some of these instincts can be seen as evil. At the base of the id, it is the nature of humankind. Because of the struggle between the id and the superego, Goodman Brown ends a torn man. From his escapade in the woods, Goodman Brown transforms from a general good man to a broken one. A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man did he become from the night of that fearful dream (Hawthorne 13). From trying to mediate between his religious beliefs and the base nature of people, Goodman Brown corrupts his own healthy being. Socially, he cannot function in the town after his conflict with the Devil and his spiritual beliefs continue. In his mind, Goodman Brown cannot remedy the fact that so many people fell to their ids and ignored their own superego spiritual beliefs. Normal days no longer remain the same. The good old minister was taking a walk along the graveyard and bestowed a blessing, Comment [31]: good just expand and tie it to the quotes Comment [32]: ends up? ends what Comment [33]: I think you can combine these two sentences to avoid repetition here "Because of the struggle between the id and the super ego, Goodman brown transforms form a general "good man" to a broken one as a result of his escapade in the woods" Comment [34]: idk how i feel about this word here Comment [35]: one: Comment [36]: combine quote Comment [37]: be more specific, they continue to do what? Comment [38]: : as he passed, on Goodman Brown. He shrank from the venerable saint as if to avoid and anathema (Hawthorne 12). Another instance where Goodman Brown functions differently is when he sees his old catechism teacher. Comment [39]: : Goody Cloyse, that excellent old Christian, stood in the early sunshine at her lattice, catechizing a little girl who had brought her a pint of mornings milk. Goodman brown snatched away the child as from the grasp of the fiend himself (Hawthorne 12-13). After taking a walk with the Devil, Goodman Brown cannot find solace as easily in his faith. He is shaken and torn. In the article Against Wholeness: The Ego s Complicity in Religion, Volney Gay claims that the ego renounces part of potential powers through a person s reliance

4 Igl 4 on religion (Gay 11). Such a person is unable to question certain parts of life because of his or her religious beliefs. Goodman Brown shows this as he grows bitter in the end. No longer can he muster the energy to fully mediate between the forces, turning him to the extreme of bitterness. And when he had lived long and was borne to his grave a hoary corpse they carved Comment [40]: : no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom (Hawthorne 13). With his despairing belief, the ego of Goodman Brown cannot live in peace. In Hawthorne s short work, Young Goodman Brown, Goodman Brown shows the strain on the ego that comes from the conflict of the superego, Goodman s faith, and the id, the Devil. Constantly having to intercede between the two eventually exhausts the ego to frustration and stress. As shown by Goodman Brown, this stress can lead to an unhappy life and social disaster. Comment [41]: seems like the same sentence as the beginning, maybe change it up a bit! Comment [42]: great piece! just remember to explain all your quotes. you have a lot of great quotes but you need to explicitly tell the reader how it is psychoanalyzing through freud

5 Igl 5 Gay, Volney P. "Against Wholeness: The Ego's Complicity in Religion." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 47.4 (1979): Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Young Goodman Brown. Literature: A Portable Anthology. 3 rd ed. Gardner, Janet, et. al., eds. Bedford, Pennington, John, and Ryan Cordell. Writing about Literature through Theory. Flat World Knowledge, Comment [43]: i think we are required to include the one from turn of the screw...?

Abstract of Greg Zacharias s Essay: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on the Turn of the Screw

1 Marissa Kleckner Dr. Pennington Engl 305 - A Literary Theory & Writing Abstract & Keyword Search Original (Rough Draft) 10/08/14 Abstract of Greg Zacharias s Essay: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on the