Ambiguity in Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown Essay example -- Young Go

Ambiguity in â€Å"Young Goodman Brown†Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚         There is no end to the ambiguity in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s â€Å"Young Goodman Brown†; this essay hopes to explore this problem.    Peter Conn in â€Å"Finding a Voice in an New Nation† makes a statement regarding Hawthorne’s ambiguity:      Almost all of Hawthorne’s finest stories are remote in time or place. The glare of contemporary reality immobillized his imagination. He required shadows and half-light, and he sought a nervous equilibrium in ambiguity. . . . Where traditional allegory was secured in certitude, however, Hawthorne’s allegorical proceedings yield only restlessness and doubt. The stable system of correspondences that tied allegory’s images and ideas together was lodged squarely upon the religious orthodoxy that Hawthorne rejected. In his belated version of the sacramental world, the links binding visible to spirit have become vexed and problematic. . . . The flickering, uncertain revelations offered by the physical world in Hawthorne’s fiction allow simultaneously for confession and concealment, for discovery and disguise. This doubleness generates tensions that can be felt throughout Hawthorne’s work. . . .   (82-84).    R. W. B. Lewis in â€Å"The Return into Rime: Hawthorne† mentions the ambiguity associated with the key imagery in â€Å"Young Goodman Brown†:   â€Å"For Hawthorne, the forest was neither the proper home of the admirable Adam, as with Cooper; nor was it the hideout of the malevolent adversary. . . . It was the ambiguous setting of moral choice. . . .† (74-75). Henry James in Hawthorne, when discussing â€Å"Young Goodman Brown† mentions how allegorical Hawthorne is, and how it is not clearly expressed with this author:    The only cases in which ... ... Lang, H.J.. â€Å"How Ambiguous Is Hawthorne.† In Hawthorne – A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by A.N. Kaul. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.    Lewis, R. W. B. â€Å"The Return into Time: Hawthorne.† In Hawthorne – A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by A.N. Kaul. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.    Martin, Terence. Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York: Twayne Publishers Inc., 1965.    Melville, Hermann. â€Å"Hawthorne and His Mosses.† In The Norton Anthology: American Literature, edited by Baym et al.   New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1995.      Ã¢â‚¬Å"Nathaniel Hawthorne.† The Norton Anthology: American Literature, edited by Baym et al.   New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1995.    Wagenknecht, Edward. Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Man, His Tales and Romances. New York: Continuum Publishing Co., 1989.