Conference Paper - Inter

Naela Danish
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Hawthorne’s Short Fiction:
Compassion or Castigation for those Fated to Fear and Horror?
Whether in fact or fiction, reality or romance, legend or life, fear and
horror has always been the cynosure of a premise that has lured people to its
fold to contemplate incessantly as to its role in human life and to ensure its
feasibility in their lives. The involvement of fear, horror and terror in
generating a state of volatility in human temperament dates back to the times
even before that of the advent of Adam and Eve to earth. Man was created in
the presence of Mephistopheles and ever since has conceded to either
engendering fear and horror, or allowing his innate character to be victimized
by it.
Moving towards modern literature written with the aspect
of constructing new and challenging facets of fear and horror through
individual perspectives, the short fiction of Nathaniel Hawthorne, explores
this aspect of fear and horror being created even in the most peacefully
congenial surroundings. In an extremely explicit manner, he displays the fact
that human disposition is tantamount to acquiesce to terror when faced with
fear and horror. This is distinctly comprehensible in his shorter fiction like
"Young Goodman Brown" and The Scarlet Letter.
The psychosomatic correspondence is presented in a compelling and
forceful manner because Hawthorne drives his source and authority from the
fact that his lineage afforded to him the vibrant and challenging
amalgamation of the Salem witches along with his ancestral loyalties towards
Puritanism. This paper will focus on the ethos of fear and horror as portrayed
by Hawthorne in understanding the human psyche, with reference to “Young
Goodman Brown” and The Scarlet Letter.
Just as when a child is overtaken by his fears and he creates monsters
to give himself the reason not to enter the dark room, people often create
scenarios of horror and terror to justify their own fears. Hawthorne was much
ahead of his time in demonstrating how the absence of an eclectic outlook
leads to the frequent occurrence of fear and horror and henceforth the
procreation of terror.
Hawthorne creates details of the possible dream journey of Brown deep
into the forest to the Witches Sabbath. Through the forest, “Hawthorne
emphasizes the split between convention and the unconscious by having
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Brown move from the town to the country as he follows his impulses. The
deeper he moves into the forest, the more completely he becomes one with
his ‘evil’” (Bunge 13). Spectral evidence - such as the devil changing into the
shape of Brown's deceased father - to the night time bonfires and finally to
the dramatic invitation of the devil for Brown to enter into communion all are
offered as part of a possible soul-shattering experience. Even the apparently
essential staff carried by the old man assumes an extremely fearful
connotation for Brown due to the over-incidence of his fear and horror.
“Hawthorne suggests fear and horror, therefore power, in the strange antics
of the twisted staff . . . . the symbolism is that of a struggle, a universal
struggle for possession of the mind” (Hale 18).
Goodman Brown's love for others is diminished and his fear and horror
take precedence once he learns that he is from a family that has hated the
Quakers enough to lash the "Quaker woman…through the streets of Salem",
and to "set fire to an Indian Village" (YGB 2131). Hence it is easy for
Goodman Brown that instead of being concerned for his own neighbor, he
turns against Goody Cloyse, willingly condemning her to the powers of
darkness: "what if a wretched old woman do chooses to go to the devil…?"
(YGB 2136)
Goodman Brown is actually Everyman Brown. He is like anyone of us.
While some of us are lucky and retain our faith despite the challenges, others
are doomed and allow themselves to be lost in the world dominated by fear,
horror and terror. Fear and horror persistently act as a negative force and
finally makes them lose their faith in themselves, their families and their
societies. As Morris asserts, "Goodman Brown goes against the greatest
virtues of love; love for his neighbor, his family and his community" (37).
Just as fear, horror and terror are tantamount to evil and vice, faith in the
power of the good is synonymous to virtue. Brown is deprived of all the finer
observances ever since, "He shrank from the bosom of Faith and turned
away"…" No hopeful verse…, for him dying hour was gloom"( YGB 2139 ).
He first turns against Faith his wife, and eventually against God
Himself. He surrenders to his fear completely and yields to his imagination to
believe in a world overtaken by terror, for when the pink ribbon that had
adorned his beloved wife, falls from the cloud, he is not hesitant to overlook
the fact that after all it could have been a lapse or an oversight. With absolute
finality he says "'Come, devil; for to thee is the world given'" (YGB
2137).Goodman Brown loses the key to all salvation; total loss comes later
and gradually he allows himself to be completely overtaken by fear and
horror, doubt and despair. He utters "My faith is gone! There is no good on
earth; and sin is but a name. Come devil; for to thee this world is given (YGB
2138).
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Goodman Brown projects a skeptical dual outlook towards life.
Association with a varied milieu and exposure to contemporary ideas
convinces Goodman "Brown like any member of the modern society, of the
need for the social display of responsibility and humanistic concern"
(Johnson 35).This dual outlook of Goodman Brown causes his doubts to
become stronger and his skepticism to increase manifold. The mixture of
reality and imagination assigns not only Goodman Brown, but also the reader
to make his own interpretations. While Brown thinks he recognizes the voice
of the Minister, the Deacon and his wife, he is not certain because it is dark
and he cannot see their figures ("YGB" 2133-34).
What gives Goodman Brown the license and the provocation to pass a
negative verdict against all - family, community, God? His own fears and
horrors lead him to deal with a sense of terminal dismissiveness. His outlook
is so tainted with fear and horror that he concedes to building up a terrorized
scenario to satisfy his fears. He shrinks from the blessings of the good old
Minister, he shirks the prayers of the deacon, snatches the child away from
the moralizing of Goody Cloyse. All this negation arises due to the incidence
of fear and horror of his own creation. It leads to his isolation and then
accelerates his self condemnation to hell. Fear and horror definitely lead to
confusion, and all apparent signs are transformed into aspects of terror by
Goodman Brown. This paradox is the key to understanding the interaction of
fear and horror, which leads to the creation, and conviction of the world of
terror.
"It is chill and damp and even the flaming altar becomes covered with
cold dew" ("YGB" 2137). In the prevailing circumstances, it is difficult to
come to a surmise."Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only
dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting?" ("YGB" 2132). Both the reader
and Brown are given the choice to treat the story either as a dream or a
reality. Hawthorne confirms that the consequence of fear and horror that is
inherent in human nature, does not necessarily lead to faith and peace. It
creates only further confusion. The confused and searching Goodman Brown
is unable to see whether his experience is a reality or a dream. Hence, he
denounces every strand of familiarity to accept the unfamiliar. He resolves to
live in a world pervaded with horror and concedes to the prevalence of terror
because he is unable to fight back his fears.
Nonetheless, Brown is a changed man; fear, horror and terror are
intertwined with the reality and imagination of human existence since the fall
of Adam. Moreover, Hawthorne chooses to project his belief that the fall of
Man is through his own contrivance, and that "damnation is not inherited but
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chosen and is redeemable through human agency" (Ziff 140), hence
Goodman Brown chose his own damnation. In the forest Brown saw a
mixture of pious and dissipated people and it was strange to see that "the
good shrank not by the wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints"
("YGB" 2135). This paradoxical display of fear, horror and terror is not an
unusual overture of human society. While on one hand fear, horror and terror
encourages Goodman Brown to imagine all possible eventuality of evil
existing in the social strata he is supposedly so well aware of; on the other
hand he allows this same fear, horror and terror to overtake him strongly
enough to dismiss any hope of redemption for the friends, family and
community that he discerns so well with. The only way out for him now was
to adopt a life of isolation, to shrink from his faith and his fellow men. As
Canby remarks, Hawthorne was aware of "a treasure house of frailties of
human certitude which skeptics love to brood on" (Canby 236), and these are
the frailties that abound in the human mind due to the interaction of fear,
horror and terror.
Hawthorne's validates the belief that this confusion is the only possible
result of an overactive imagination. To mistrust yourself, your neighbor, your
teacher, and your very mind cannot produce faith. After his experience in the
woods, the matured and bitter Goodman Brown maybe equated to the
paradigm of the hardened terrorists of the modern society. Salem village,
instead of offering any solace or stability, is now completely tainted by
Brown's imagination and the outlook polluted by fear and horror, makes him
view the scenario as “the center of the witchcraft delusion, in the witching
times of 1692, and it shows the populace of Salem Village, those chief in
authority as well as obscure young citizens like Brown, enticed by fiendish
shapes into the frightful solitude of superstitious fear” (Abel 133).The
statement that Hawthorne creates for "Young Goodman Brown" is that "in
distrustful and depraved society personal evidence such as a dream or vision
grows into allegations and disbelief; just as the distrustful society that
Puritans created themselves for a prosperous congregation would only return
harm to them" (Mather 97).
By showing the failures of the Puritan society in dealing with the
problem of the members and specifically the experience of their adaptation to
a new environment, a new-fangled society, Hawthorne speaks about the
possible consequences of the interaction of fear, horror and terror with
imagination. Specific historical evidence is used to question the validity of
Puritan doctrine. For example, the "devil" in Young Goodman Brown is seen
not only as an apparition of Goodman Brown's psychological trauma due to
his lack of a healthy experience and the psychological effects of catechism
but also may be seen as the reaction to a modern day scenario. The fear and
horror that lurks in man's soul has been rendered incapable of all types of the
Naela Danish
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self-examination that is required to effect ratification. Frank Shuffelton's
work "Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Revival movement" states that:
To accept one's almost solipsistic isolation from humanity,
Goodman Brown turns his back on Salem village in order to
venture into dark nature and his darker self….reject(ing) the
society which has nurtured him from the self-willed terrors of
imagination. This perception is for Hawthorne the central
truth of the story and it is simultaneously the old error toward
which Puritanism tended and the mistake of the
contemporary revivalists. (319)
By placing so much importance on the imaginative experience despite
evidence for election to heaven from the scriptures, while granting neither the
self-trust nor the self-worth to its behaviors, people like Goodman Brown can
only be seen to enter into an unending cycle of misery in which man is the
most depraved and most unworthy - exactly what the modern day Goodman
is traumatized with. Levy asserts, that Brown “is Everyman. The bargain he
has struck with Satan is the universal one . . . giving up his faith in exchange
for fears, doubts and misery. Initially, he is a naive and immature young man
who fails to understand the gravity of the step he has taken . . . [which is]
succeeded by a presumably adult determination to resist his own impulses”
(117). Fogle also confirms that his fear and horror allows him to “accept both
society in general and his fellow men as individuals at their own valuation,
[who] in one terrible night are transformed ever since Brown is confronted
with the vision of human evil . . .” (15). Extrapolation, inferring of the
unknown from the known is what confronts Brown from hence onwards.
Brown has not gone far, before he meets the devil in the form of a middle
aged, respectable man, with whom Brown makes a bargain to accompany on
his journey. Although Brown does realize who the companion is, he does not
try to get rid of the Devil and continues to work with him deeper into the
forest. Brown is further shocked to learn that his well revered ancestors were
in reality all through the followers of the Devil. (54) In the process he
progressively undermines the young man’s faith in the institutions and the
men whom he has heretofore revered” (Fogle 17).
Brown's unfounded fears and doubts do not even spare to create an
image of terror out of the innocent appearance of his young and innocent
wife. He speculates “The pink ribbons that adorn the cap which Faith wears .
. . are a badge of feminine innocence” (Abel 130). The ribbons are in fact an
explicit link between two conceptions of Faith, connecting sweet little Faith
of the village with the woman who stands at the Devil’s baptismal front. As
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Levy observes, “They are part of her adornment of dress, and they suggest,
rather than symbolize something light and playful, consistent with her
anxious simplicity at the beginning and the joyful, almost childish eagerness
with which she greets Brown at the end” (124). However, Ferguson
intensifies the role of fear and horror in Brown's imagination when he asserts,
“Neither scarlet nor white, but of a hue somewhere between, the ribbons
suggest neither total depravity nor innocence, but a psychological state
somewhere between. Tied like a label to the head of Faith, they represent the
tainted innocence, the spiritual imperfection of all mankind” (45).
Goodman Brown's faith is completely eroded as in the case of any
modern day example of a terrorist's faith being overtaken by fear and then his
desperate but nevertheless drastic resolution of spreading terror similar to the
case of the most recent incidence of the Glasgow bombers. Desperation and
despair due to fear and horror, leads to the building up of a greater frenzy; an
urge to commit further erroneous deeds in order to justify their individual
unfounded and tenuous fears.
Likewise, in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, representation of fear and
horror is used throughout the novel to portray the character Roger
Chillingworth. His acts of revenge embody the prognosis of his being
confounded by fear and horror due to which he opts for tormenting Hester
Pyrenne with terror, which fundamentally leads to the decomposition of his
own character. It contains the portraying of a densely dark and dismal setting.
The nature of fear and horror is explicitly represented through the characters,
settings, and themes throughout the story. Chillingworth’s grueling battle
with fear and horror embodies his confrontation and precedence with terror.
As Ripley observes, "Hawthorne projects the theory that the prognosis of fear
and horror is actually being fueled by imagination. Thus, sending out the
feeling that terror emanates from within the mind. The exact horror that is
being relayed is the notion that ordinary people can have a genuine and
spiritual persona from the outside but on the inside a dark and black man is
awaiting their actions" (25).
Roger Chillingworth appears as a character whose symbolic
relationship with fear and horror is clearly evident. Chillingworth first
emerges as a stranger of the new colony. After being held captive by Indians
subsequent to being shipwrecked a year before, he learns of Hester’s sin. At
first he tries his best to pretend that all is fine: "The Stranger entered the
room with the characteristic quietude of the profession to which he
announced himself as belonging" (TSL 76). Later however, his fear gets the
better of him and in Chapter 4, we find that he disguises himself as a
physician, and provides a new identity for himself as Roger Chillingworth.
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“…said Old Roger Chillingworth, as he was hereafter to be named.” (TSL
81). After changing his name to Roger Chillingworth, and categorizing
himself as a great physician, he is able to deceive the people in the colony.
This aspect of his character definitely insinuates him of being overwhelmed
with the fear and horror of being discovered. This reinforces his urge to
intentionally create an ambiance of terror for others, behind which he can
conveniently hide his own trepidation. The primary and deadly fear seen to
haunt Roger Chillingworth vividly, is that of vengeance. It is his primary fear
which eventually leads to his defeat and his death. "We have just enough
religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another", said
Jonathan Swift.
What once began for Chillingworth as an act of fear, slowly transforms
into a life of endless obsession. The rationale for it is that Chillingworth is
too afraid to let go of Dimmesdale. He is afraid that once this happens, he
will be removed from the pedestal of heroism and instead the glamour of
martyrdom will be bestowed on Dimmesdale. The fear of losing this
reputation inflames his urge to further terrorize Dimmesdale. “Not the less,
he shall be mine.” (TSL 78). Roger Chillingworth tells Hester that the father
of her child will be made known to the people. Chillingworth also makes it
certain that he learns about the man, and confronts him. The intensity of
Chillingworth’s plans for the future is evident, as the foreshadowing of his
obsession with the fear and horror of the discovery of his own past becomes
perceptible. As the passion of his fears grows, Chillingworth’s actions
become more horrifying and terrorizing. He professes more intimate relations
“…this learned man was the physician as well as friend of the young
minister.” (TSL 109).
Chillingworth decides to become good friends with Reverend
Dimmesdale, the father of Hester Prynne’s child, in order to ensure the slow
and painful torture of the reverend. “These black weeds have sprung up out
of a buried heart to make manifest of an unspoken crime.” (TSL 129).
Chillingworth speaks to the reverend about the blackness of secrets in order
to intensify the trauma of terrorizing the reverend by increasing the pain of
his guilt. Chillingworth’s own fear and horror is also apparent here in his
obsession of destroying the reverend. Although Chillingworth was the only
character with no problem at the start of the novel, his indulgence in his fear
and horror of being discovered as an imposter, leads to his defeat as he
remains the only character who never repents for any of the terrors that he
allowed to emanate from his fears.
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The structure of Chillingworth’s character is carefully decomposed
throughout the novel in order to display his psychosomatic distress brought
about by fear and horror. “…Hester had been looking steadily at the old man,
and was shocked, as well as wonder-smitten, to discern what a change had
been wrought upon him in the last seven years. But the former aspect of an
intellectual and studious man, calm and quiet, which was what she best
remembered in him, had altogether vanished and had been succeeded by an
eager searching, almost fierce, yet carefully guarded look.” (TSL 103). The
quote greatly relates to what has happened to Chillingworth throughout the
novel. After dedicating his life to fear and horror, he begins to change for the
worse.
Soon, Chillingworth learns that the reverend may have the strength to
escape his destiny for him. Chillingworth realizes, that if Dimmesdale finally
makes public of his sin, he will escape Chillingworth, because Chillingworth
will no longer be able to slowly destroy him through guilt. “The physician
knew, then, that, in the minister’s regard, he was no longer a trusted friend,
but his bitterest enemy.” (TSL 211). Chillingworth gains a deeper abhorrence
for Dimmesdale now as he becomes stronger.
Later, as Dimmesdale finally decides to reveal his shame,
Chillingworth grabs him violently and screams, “Do not blacken your fame
and perish in dishonor. I can yet save you.” (TSL 235). This in fact is the fear
psychosis of Chillingworth. He is afraid to lose his self importance.
However as Dimmesdale displays a firm hold over himself, does not allow
his fears to intimidate him, he confesses valiantly and escapes Chillingworth;
Roger has been utterly defeated, by fearlessness. After dedicating the last
seven years of his life to terrorize and torment the reverend, Chillingworth’s
motive for living to create terror, and his obsession with fear and horror is no
longer present. After Dimmesdale dies upon the scaffold, Chillingworth does
very little with the rest of his life, and dies a year after the death of the
reverend.
The delineation of Chillingworth's character is defined as his adherence
to observe fear, horror and terror is exposed. It conveys meanings that are
very compelling in order to understand a character completely overtaken by
fear. First, his attitude towards nurturing an unshakeable faith in the
observation of fear and horror on a personal level and hiding behind its
facade, and then the effect of his retribution in extending an ultimate sense of
terror to victimatise others, describe the effects of his own qualms,
uncertainties and fears on the external level. Not only did he slowly
decompose the life of Reverend Dimmesdale, but after the death, he lost
reason for living, and died also.
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A certain empathy can be felt with Chillingworth in the earlier part.
Many can relate to having a traumatic loss of identity or even being a victim
of treachery, corruption or fraud. This leads to a total loss of faith in the
system that sustains us causing a spate of fear and horror to descend
relentlessly on the enduring party. Resolution of such a trauma seems to be
only through generating an atmosphere of further terror, fear and horror in
search of self worth and self proclamation by overwhelming others with
terror to relieve the personal anguish. At first it is easy to side with
Chillingworth: even to understand the need for the prognostic reaction he
displays. Yet, as his inclination to embrace horror and unleash terror is shown
through his actions, thoughts, looks, and feelings a need to reevaluate the true
significance of his actions.
Chillingworth appears as a character, brought into a ‘destined for
perfection’ society, as one who might turn out to be a prominent inhabitant of
the colony. However, it is fated otherwise and his callous tactics led to the
deaths of two men, and these sinister plans tainted his future prospects in
society. Although he was originally the only character without a problem or a
transgression, he became the one who made the worst mistake of all. It is the
knowledge that he is allowing his fears to surpass him that makes
Chillingworth a monster. It is through this awareness that the ambitious and
the ruthless side emerges. His fears and doubts make him dive deeper into
questions of morality, egotism and human selfishness, which are a much
bigger horror story in themselves. In all the misery he imagines and dreads,
he does not conceive even an iota of the anguish he was destined to endure
and to inflict on others.
Along with the prevalence of fear, horror and terror, many other more
complex themes are interwoven in the aspect. Hawthorne wants to focus on
the fact that when a society rejects such a character as they become more
caught in the vortex of fear and horror due to which he does not desist from
inflicting terror on others. This identically mirrors the actions and reactions
of Goodman Brown and Chillingworth when confronted with fear and horror.
We see them ruining their own lives that of their families and in the long run
the entire humanity as a result of their myopic outlook.
Fear of the inner self leads to the creation of external horror and terror.
Those suffering from a fear psychosis imagine or create a world of horror and
terror to convince themselves that their fear is legitimate. If Goodman Brown
and Chillingworth had not been afraid of what they imagined to be world of
fear and horror, they could have fought over their fears and would not have
led the life of the living dead. Undiminishing fear arising of the inner self
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upsurges a psychosomatic condition that can be devastating in terms of acting
as a precursor to horror and terror. An absolute loss of faith develops into a
drastic outcome that produces fear and horror and ascertains the subsistence
of their belief in terror.
Goodman Brown and Chillingworth both experience some sort of a
loss in faith - personal and social; which is enough to make them unable to
overcome fear. They have an unyielding belief that they are fated to live in a
world wrought out of fear and horror; relief in such a world will come only
through engendering terror. Goodman Brown imagines that there exists a
divergent world of fear and horror that leads to doubting every soul around
him and creates a convincing response to horror and terror as an only option.
Such elements are becoming a palpable component of the modern
society. The Glasgow bomber caused a bomb to explode having undergone
an impression of fear, that everything around them could become tangible,
once a sense of horror and terror is generated. They too imagined that their
personal fear can be erased with the conviction that generating horror and
terror is the last resort. The fact that we are manipulated to feel empathy
towards the character giving into horror and especially when the focus of his
horror leads him to embrace terror as a last resort is the focus of our
compassion or castigation. He rejects society, parenthood and love, finally
dying far away from his family. Whether it is Goodman Brown or
Chillingworth or a Glasgow bombers, all willingly give in to fear and spread
an aura of horror and terror because of their innate loss of faith in communal
love.
While Goodman Brown and Chillingworth facilitate the process of
imagining horror and terror and living with it at their own distress, the
Glasgow bombers enacted it to a practically appalling crescendo. The results
are however the same: while Goodman Brown and Chillingworth smolder in
a fire of horror and set ablaze the entire scenario with terror all along their
conscious lives, so do the Glasgow bombers. Apart from personal anguish,
their psychosomatic status leads them to ruthlessly generate a more
devastating incidence of terror and torment for the society they patronized.
Such individuals not only put at stake their own existence, but also jeopardize
the survival of others. Hence, in order to combat horror and terror, there is a
stringent need of a globalized effort to establish a debate for whether to
castigate or have compassion for those wallowing in fear and consequently
generating horror and terror that engulfs not only their innate selves, but also
the intimate community that had sustained them all along!
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Works Cited
Primary Sources
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown." 1835. The Heath
Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter et al. 2nd ed. Vol. 1.
Lexington: Heath, 1944. 2129-38
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter, A Romance Boston: Ticknor and
Fields, 1850
Secondary Sources
Abel, Darrel. The Moral Picturesque: Studies in Hawthorne’s Fiction.
Indiana: Purdue UP, 1988.
Baym, Nina. The Scarlet Letter: A Reading. Boston: Twayne, 1986. PS1868
.B39 George Ripley or According Ripley
Benoit, Raymond. "'Young Goodman Brown': The Second Time Around."
The Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 19 (Spring 1993): 18-21.
Bunge, Nancy. Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Study of the Short Fiction. New
York: Twayne, 1993.
Canby, Henry Seidel. Classic Americans: A Study of Eminent American
Writers from Irving to Whitman. New York: Russell and Russell, 1939.
Ferguson, J. M., Jr. “Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown.” Explicator 28
(Dec. 1969): Item 32.
Fogle, Richard Harter. Hawthorne's Fiction: The Light and the Dark.
Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1952.
Franklin, Benjamin V. “Goodman Brown and the Puritan Catechism.” ESQ
40 (1994): 67-88.
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Hale, John K. “The Serpentine Staff in ‘Young Goodman Brown.’”
Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 19 (Fall 1993): 17-18.
Johnson, Claudia D. The Productive Tension of Hawthorne's Art. University
if Alabama P, 1981.
Keil, James C. "Hawthorne's 'Young Goodman Brown': Early NineteenthCentury and Puritan Constructions of Gender.'" The New England Quarterly
69 (March 1996): 33-55.
Levy, Leo B. “The Problem of Faith in ‘Young Goodman Brown.’” Modern
Critcial Views: Nathaniel Hawthorne. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York:
Chelsea House, 1986. 115-126.
Mather, Cotton. "A Discourse on Witchcraft." Levin 96-105.
Murfin, Ross C. “Introduction: The Biographical and Historical
Background.” Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism: Nathaniel
Hawthorne, "The Scarlet Letter." Boston: St. Martin’s Press, 1991. 3-18.
Ziff, Larzer. Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence
in America. New York: Viking Press, 1981.