Evil can infect people who seem upright

Jung termed external stimuli such as dark forests primordial symbols—primordial meaning existing from the beginning of time. Examples of other primordial symbols you may encounter in your study of literature include the following: a river the passage of time , overcast sky gloom, depression, despair , lamb innocence, vulnerability , violent storm wrath, inconsolable grief , flowers delicacy, perishability, beauty , mountain obstacle, challenge , eagle majesty, freedom the color white purity, innocence , the color red anger, passion, war, blood , the color green new life, hope , water birth or rebirth , autumn old age , winter death.

Faith Goodman Brown's wife, Faith, symbolizes Brown's spiritual faith. When he sees her in the forest at the witches' sabbath, he realizes he is in danger of losing not only his wife but also his spiritual faith. Goodman Brown discovers that even highly respected people in Salem fall victim to the forces of darkness. Today—when corporate executives cheat stockholders, politicians lie to win elections, and members of the clergy defraud their congregations—this theme still resonates.

There are, of course, absolute moral values which should prevail for everyone, regardless of their religion or lack of it. For example, murder is always wrong; child abuse is always wrong. However, the devil figure succeeds in confounding Brown on what is truly right and what is truly wrong.

What he experienced in the forest—whether dream or reality—changes his life. Keep in mind that normal, mentally stable people—like you or those around you—sometimes accept delusions, fantasies, or fabrications as real events. Keep in mind, too, that they sometimes see evil in a person who has done no evil.

It is also reasonable to interpret the short story as a tale of rebellion against established beliefs. Like young people today—who, refusing to be cast in the philosophical or theological mold of their parents or friends—explore various ideologies and dabble in nihilism.

Brown may have wished to venture into the forbidden zone, into terra incognita, to discover the world and its ideas for himself. Goody: 1 Housewife, especially an elderly one, of a lower class; 2 any lower-class woman; 3 housewife or mistress of a household.

Wot'st: Paragraph 15 : Know. Maltreatment of Indians by whites provoked him into waging what came to be known as King Philip's War against New Englanders in His defiance instilled fear in the white inhabitants of New England.

Lecture-Day Paragraph 21 : Weekday on which a sermon was given. Cinquefoil Paragraph 32 : Flowering plant of the rose family that has white, red, or yellow petals. Wolf's Bane Paragraph 32 : Wolfsbane, a poisonous plant. According to these verses, God directs Moses to tell Aaron, his brother, to cast down his staff before the throne of the pharaoh of Egypt.

When he does so, it transforms itself into a serpent. The pharaoh's magicians magi then cast down their staffs, which in like manner turned into serpents. However, Aaron's staff consumes the staffs of the magicians. Puritanism and the Witch Trials Puritanism began in England in the late Sixteenth Century when Protestant reformers attempted to purge the Church of England or Anglican Church of the elaborate ceremonies, rituals, and hierarchical structure it retained from the Roman Catholic Church after King Henry VIII established Anglicanism by acts of Parliament between and The Act of Supremacy, approved in , officially established the Church of England as an independent Protestant entity separate from the Roman Catholic Church.

However, the Church of England retained Catholic rituals such as the mass and prelates such as bishops. An outspoken man, Proctor takes every opportunity to criticize Reverend Parris and the now corrupt church. This resentment leads John to use his wife Elizabeth's illness as an excuse to stay away from Sunday services, a decision that will come back to haunt the Proctors in the future. On the very first day that the town starts buzzing about witches, John questions Reverend Parris' motives in front of several of Salem's most prominent citizens when he learns that Parris has sent for the Reverend John Hale, an expert on witches, without calling a town meeting first.

A firm believer that the citizens should decide on Salem's course of action; John uses this situation He becomes cynical of his surroundings and lives his life accordingly. His discovery of evil results in his loss of grips with humanity. He comes to believe there is evil in all people and is unable to accept it. He grows old with contempt for his former idols, and never again is he able to conceive of the idea that life is pure, grand, and good. At his funeral, his family has nothing encouraging to put on his grave, and neighbors do not even bother to attend.

In 'Young Goodman Brown,'; Hawthorne makes the reader believe that Goodman Brown has learned that truth about the world and how evil it really is.

In the story the accounts of Goodman Brown let you believe that he has truly seen the evil in the world and knows what lurks behind everybody masks. He makes you realize that even though the person may look holy and religious that evilness is all around us and most people will never ever find out the truth.

The character Young Goodman Brown written by Nathaniel Hawthorne finds many issues of evil concerning the town's people in which he lives, about himself, and the reality behind the evil. In the story 'Young Goodman Brown'; Goodman Brown learns about evil in the towns people and how what he thought was the truth is really not. They were my good friends, both; and many a pleasant walk have we had along this path, and returned merrily after midnight.

I would fain be friends with you, for their sake. Or, verily, I marvel not, seeing that the least rumor of the sort would have driven them from New England. We are a people of prayer, and good works to boot, and abide no such wickedness. The deacons of many a church have drunk the communion wine with me; the selectmen, of divers towns, make me their chairman; and a majority of the Great and General Court are firm supporters of my interest.

The governor and I, too--but these are state-secrets. But, were I to go on with thee, how should I meet the eye of that good old man, our minister, at Salem village? Oh, his voice would make me tremble, both Sabbath-day and lecture-day! It would break her dear little heart; and I'd rather break my own! I would not, for twenty old women like the one hobbling before us, that Faith should come to any harm.

Being a stranger to you, she might ask whom I was consorting with, and whither I was going. She, meanwhile, was making the best of her way, with singular speed for so aged a woman, and mumbling some indistinct words, a prayer, doubtless, as she went.

The traveller put forth his staff, and touched her withered neck with what seemed the serpent's tail. But--would your worship believe it? But now your good worship will lend me your arm, and we shall be there in a twinkling.

Of this fact, however, Goodman Brown could not take cognizance. He had cast up his eyes in astonishment, and looking down again, beheld neither Goody Cloyse nor the serpentine staff, but his fellow-traveller alone, who waited for him as calmly as if nothing had happened.

As they went, he plucked a branch of maple, to serve for a walking-stick, and began to strip it of the twigs and little boughs, which were wet with evening dew. The moment his fingers touched them, they became strangely withered and dried up, as with a week's sunshine. Thus the pair proceeded, at a good free pace, until suddenly, in a gloomy hollow of the road, Goodman Brown sat himself down on the stump of a tree, and refused to go any farther.

Not another step will I budge on this errand. 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 dear Faith, and go after her? The young man sat a few moments by the road-side, applauding himself greatly, and thinking with how clear a conscience he should meet the minister, in his morning-walk, nor shrink from the eye of good old Deacon Gookin.

And what calm sleep would be his, that very night, which was to have been spent so wickedly, but purely and sweetly now, in the arms of Faith! Amidst these pleasant and praiseworthy meditations, Goodman Brown heard the tramp of horses along the road, and deemed it advisable to conceal himself within the verge of the forest, conscious of the guilty purpose that had brought him thither, though now so happily turned from it.

These mingled sounds appeared to pass along the road, within a few yards of the young man's hiding-place; but owing, doubtless, to the depth of the gloom, at that particular spot, neither the travellers nor their steeds were visible. Though their figures brushed the small boughs by the way-side, it could not be seen that they intercepted, even for a moment, the faint gleam from the strip of bright sky, athwart which they must have passed.

Goodman Brown alternately crouched and stood on tip-toe, pulling aside the branches, and thrusting forth his head as far as he durst, without discerning so much as a shadow.

It vexed him the more, because he could have sworn, were such a thing possible, that he recognized the voices of the minister and Deacon Gookin, jogging along quietly, as they were wont to do, when bound to some ordination or ecclesiastical council.

While yet within hearing, one of the riders stopped to pluck a switch. They tell me that some of our community are to be here from Falmouth and beyond, and others from Connecticut and Rhode-Island; besides several of the Indian powows, who, after their fashion, know almost as much deviltry as the best of us. Moreover, there is a goodly young woman to be taken into communion. Nothing can be done, you know, until I get on the ground.

Whither, then, could these holy men be journeying, so deep into the heathen wilderness? Young Goodman Brown caught hold of a tree, for support, being ready to sink down on the ground, faint and overburthened with the heavy sickness of his heart.

He looked up to the sky, doubting whether there really was a Heaven above him. Yet, there was the blue arch, and the stars brightening in it. The blue sky was still visible, except directly overhead, where this black mass of cloud was sweeping swiftly northward. Aloft in the air, as if from the depths of the cloud, came a confused and doubtful sound of voices. Once, the listener fancied that he could distinguish the accent of town's-people of his own, men and women, both pious and ungodly, many of whom he had met at the communion-table, and had seen others rioting at the tavern.

The next moment, so indistinct were the sounds, he doubted whether he had heard aught but the murmur of the old forest, whispering without a wind. Then came a stronger swell of those familiar tones, heard daily in the sunshine, at Salem village, but never, until now, from a cloud of night. There was one voice, of a young woman, uttering lamentations, yet with an uncertain sorrow, and entreating for some favor, which, perhaps, it would grieve her to obtain.

And all the unseen multitude, both saints and sinners, seemed to encourage her onward. There was a scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fading into far-off laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving the clear and silent sky above Goodman Brown.

But something fluttered lightly down through the air, and caught on the branch of a tree. The young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon.

Come, devil! The road grew wilder and drearier, and more faintly traced, and vanished at length, leaving him in the heart of the dark wilderness, still rushing onward, with the instinct that guides mortal man to evil. The whole forest was peopled with frightful sounds; the creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts, and the yell of Indians; while, sometimes the wind tolled like a distant church-bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar around the traveller, as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn.

But he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from its other horrors. Think not to frighten me with your deviltry! Come witch, come wizard, come Indian powow, come devil himself! You may as well fear him as he fear you! On he flew, among the black pines, brandishing his staff with frenzied gestures, now giving vent to an inspiration of horrid blasphemy, and now shouting forth such laughter, as set all the echoes of the forest laughing like demons around him.

The fiend in his own shape is less hideous, than when he rages in the breast of man. Thus sped the demoniac on his course, until, quivering among the trees, he saw a red light before him, as when the felled trunks and branches of a clearing have been set on fire, and throw up their lurid blaze against the sky, at the hour of midnight. He paused, in a lull of the tempest that had driven him onward, and heard the swell of what seemed a hymn, rolling solemnly from a distance, with the weight of many voices.

He knew the tune; it was a familiar one in the choir of the village meeting-house. The verse died heavily away, and was lengthened by a chorus, not of human voices, but of all the sounds of the benighted wilderness, pealing in awful harmony together. Goodman Brown cried out; and his cry was lost to his own ear, by its unison with the cry of the desert. At one extremity of an open space, hemmed in by the dark wall of the forest, arose a rock, bearing some rude, natural resemblance either to an altar or a pulpit, and surrounded by four blazing pines, their tops aflame, their stems untouched, like candles at an evening meeting.

Discuss examples of the ways in which doors and keys are used as symbols in The Miracle Worker. Make at least two references to specific details in the play to support your ideas. How does The Misfit embody both verses of Matthew ? What support do you have for this theme? Be sure you explore. I am really trying to understand the novel Lord of the Flies. My teacher asked us to find the theme. I'm not sure what it is. Also, I am college student and one of my high school friends told me about this site.

Can you still help me? Please tell. While the colors associated with Holi are the main part of this celebration, the true reason for celebrating Holi is to keep the evil spirits away. Not only is Holi a joyous, colorful festival to celebrate with friends and family, but it is also meant to. Then you can make your own decision about the theme of The Face on the Milk Carton.

One of the thorniest issues in the philosophy of religion is the problem of evil. Explaining the problem is simple enough: How can one reconcile the existence of a God who is good and omniscient in light of how much suffering there is in the world? The term 'point of view' refers to the way the writer has chosen to a.

The theme of a story a. Viroids typically infect plant, while prions typically infect nervous system. Is this correct? Since the imagination of evil encourages us to do real evil, how should we react to accounts from the media or elsewhere about monstrous evil in our neighborhood or elsewhere in the world?

I forgot to include the following sentences. You can make up your own symbols. Rough sketches of train engines, trucks, and planes could symbolize major. I want to create a poem with wisdom in it. I can't seem to think of a good theme I actually want to create a poem on nature. Like what I want to say is that Nature is. I am working on my English presentation for Wuthering Heights the novel. I have to create and present a comparison between a theme from Wutering Heights and a contemporary issue.

For example, if the novel deals with the topic of alienation it could be. Unruly evil by David Pocok - what does pocock mean by unruly evil? I want to check my answer to the question, "What is a Faustian Bargain"?

I need this as soon as possible, and I appreciate the help in advance. I need my answer checked for tomorrow, it is for my project in English literature study. What is the theme of West Side Story? The prejudice is evil. All is fair in love and war C. Any friends you have are okay D. Get revenge for everything E. None of the above I think C and D are just wrong and B is not true at all.

I would say it's A.