Essay for lit, needs revisions!!

can someone check my grammars for me. I always have troubled with subject-verb agreement and any advice would be awesome. i would appreciated it. thanks peace

Young Goodman Brown:

A Different Perspective on the Garden of Eden



Nathaniel Hawthorne's “Young Goodman Brown” depicts a young husband on a journey through the forest where he is confronted with the evil and witchery side of village. The story projects an array of symbolism of mystery and confusion that characterizes 's works. One of the representations that many critics pointed out is the linkage between the forest with the Garden of Eden that denotes an imagery of the passage of humanity in the Christian view where Adam was expelled from the Garden. Although many critics have referenced the forest as a symbol for the Garden, the forest can be portrayed as something grandeur: the forbidden tree of knowledge of good and evil. By agreeing with critics' view of the forest, the perception gives the wrong impression of the happy and delightful paradise that God has made. To view the forest as the forbidden tree will not destroy the imagery of the beautiful Garden of Eden, but rather put emphasis on the tree which causes the first sin in this world. In this sense, the mysteries of the story play out accordingly with symbols utilized by . This perspective, in some way, contrasts the critics' view but gives new insight that will expand 's ambiguous work. The portrayal of the forest as the tree of forbidden knowledge sets the depiction of Goodman Brown's wife, Faith, as either Eve or God, the symbolism of Brown coming to knowledge of good and evil, and the imagery of Brown's new knowledge of the world around him.

Goodman Brown's wife, Faith for which she is “aptly named” (383), has a double entendre that depicts Faith as either Eve or God. In this perspective of the forest as being the forbidden tree, Faith or Eve has already been stained with original sin by eating the forbidden fruit which characterizes her “with the pink ribbons of her cap” (383). The pink ribbons signify her impurity and now she awaits her husband to make that same choice for which she unhesitatingly let him go to the forest. Nowhere in the text did Faith (Eve) stops her husband from going, but rather she blesses him well when she said, “May you find all well when you come back” (383). Faith, symbolizes as God-figure, gives a resistant to the decision that Goodman Brown must make: to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree or not. “With heaven above and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the devil!” (387) said Brown, but with “poor little Faith” (383), he gives into temptation and goes into the forest signifying him disobeying God by taking the fruit of the forbidden tree into his hands.

In “Young Goodman Brown”, the old man with his staff that “bore the likeness of a great black snake” (384) represents the devil himself. 's portrayal of the old man as a father-like figure to Goodman Brown gives a sense of trust and assurance so as to push Brown farther into sinfulness. Goodman Brown has already made the decision to eat the fruit by the denotation of him “crossing the threshold”, and with “Faith [which] kept [him] back a while” (383) decides to take the first bite. Every time he resists the temptation to go on further into the forest but still goes on, it symbolizes him taking a bite of the fruit because with each bite, he comes into the realization that there is evil in the world. At first, he sees his father as a good Christian and that he never went “into the woods on such errand” (384), but the devil gives him a depiction of all the evil that his father and grandfather did. Next, he sees his pious catechism teacher, Goody Cloyse, talking and “cackling aloud” (385) with the devil. Finally with the third and last resistance, also a representation of disobedience to the Trinity God, he comes to see the very men that service to God's people riding deeper inside the forest, the minister and Deacon Gookin. By eating the fruit portray by the symbolism of Brown walking deeper into the forest, he comes to the realization of the good and evil in the world.

With the new knowledge of evil and good, Goodman's “Faith is gone [and] there is no good on earth; and sin is but a name” (387). He has fallen from God's grace, and now “giving vent to an inspiration of horrid blasphemy” (387), he invited the devil to come into the world for which it is given to him. Young Goodman Brown did not see any good among his people in and never would he be the same. He is bewildered by his new understanding of the world, and when the minister tries to bless him, “he shrank from the venerable saint as if to avoid an anathema” (391). Young Goodman Brown has lost what is good and beautiful to a world stained with sin. He has lost faith and now must live for the rest of his life knowing the evilness of his people and his wife.

's “Young Goodman Brown” is full of symbolism and could be taken to mean a lot of different ideas and themes. There is no right or wrong answer in 's works. This is true of “Young Goodman Brown” where critics portray the forest as the Garden of Eden. To contrast this point of view, it can be said that the forest symbolizes the forbidden tree of knowledge of good and evil and has been proven that this point of view can be accepted. In disagreement with critics who say otherwise, this paper presents a different light to “Young Goodman Brown”. Although there can be many more perspective on “Young Goodman Brown”, one thing is clear is that has given the reader an ambiguity to decide for themselves what they want to believe.