Puritan Depravity and Distrust in Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown Essay

Puritan Depravity and Distrust in Young Goodman Brown Puritan doctrine taught that all manpower are totally depraved and require constant self-examination to see that they are sinners and unworthy of Gods Grace. Because man had broken the Covenant of Works when Adam had eaten from the direct of Knowledge, God offered a new covenant to Abrahams people which held that election to Heaven was merely a possibility. In the Puritan religion, believers dutifully recognized the negative aspects of their humanity rather than the gifts they possessed. This shadow of distrust would have a direct work out on early American New England and on many of its historians and writers, one of which was Nathaniel Hawthorne. The lure of Puritan religion, culture and education along with the setting of his hometown of Salem, Massachusetts, is a common topic in Nathaniel Hawthornes works. In particular, Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown allows the writer to examine and perchance provide commentary on no t only the Salem of his own time but similarly the Salem of his ancestors. Growing up, Hawthorne could not escape the influence of Puritan society, not only from residing with his fathers devout Puritan family as a child but also due to Hawthornes correction of his own family history. The first of his ancestors, William Hathorne, is describe in Hawthornes The Custom House as arriving with the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630 with his Bible and his sword (26). A further connection can also be seen in his more notable ancestor John Hathorne, who exemplified the level of zealousness in Puritanism with his role as persecutor in the Salem Witch Trials. The study of his own family from the establishment of the Bay Colony to the Second Gre... ... 40 (First Quarter 1994) 67-88. Grayson, Robert C. Curdled Milk for Babes The Role of the Catechism in Young Goodman Brown. The Nathaniel Hawthorne Review 16 (Spring 1990) 1-5. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Young Goodman Brown. 1835. The heathland Ant hology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter et al. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Lexington Heath, 1944. 2129-38. Levin, David. What happened in Salem? 2nd ed. New York Harcourt, Brace and World Inc, 1967. Mather, Cotton. A Discourse on Witchcraft. Levin 96-105. Murfin, Ross C. Introduction The Biographical and diachronic Background. Case Studies in Contemporary Criticism Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter. Boston St. Martins Press, 1991. 3-18. Shuffelton, Frank. Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Revival Movement. The American Transcendental Quarterly 44 (Fall 1979) 311-321.