Young Birth Mark
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Young Birthmark
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth. . . . darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” God then commanded light to be, and saw light to be good and separating the light from darkness, making day and night. God then goes on to make the sky, dry land, seas, vegetation, land and sea creatures, and on the sixth day God had created his likeness: man and woman. Since man was created in Gods own image, he was perfect. Yet the first woman disobeyed God, starting mankinds imperfect traits of desire. In Nathaniel Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown and The Birthmark, false perfection existed while real perfection was sought, but with unexpected consequences. Hawthornes tales have several parallel qualities that hint at this; however, each work brings its own uniqueness to do so. The symbols of the pink ribbons and the red birthmark cause the reader to grasp the importance of such in the outcome of the allegories along with the role of dreams.
Hawthornes stories Young Goodman Brown and The Birthmark both make use of dreams to affect the story and reveal the important characters. With each story, the dreams presented are quite beneficial to the development of the story as they give the reader a new view of the characters within. At the same time, however, it becomes difficult to determine how much of the dream was real, and how much is false reality. This is true with Young Goodman Brown, who cannot determine whether the events in his life actually occurred, or if they simply were created unconsciously. In The Birthmark, Aylmer too is haunted by his night-time musings as he dreams of mutilating his wife in order to rid her of a small birthmark that has affected him so. This small detail later turns out to foreshadow the conclusion of the story, while giving readers further insight into his diabolical nature. Thus, dreams play an important developmental role in the explication of Hawthornes characters. Being enlightened on the true nature of a person changes the way one acts and feels toward said person. Goodman Brown had discovered that the old woman who had taught him his catechism was in fact a witch. During the time in which this story was set, to be a witch was punishable by death. This event was perhaps the beginning of his reality twisting into a fearsome dream. Hawthorne uses this as a sort of dull example of perfection may be known, but indeed is not. Brown–who would never miss a day of church in his life–sees all of his fellow countrymen align Satan, his wife being seduced by the ways of the Devil and he himself becomes affiliated with Lucifer. This being so far off track from his reality, Goodman Brown associates this Satanist ritual to be a dream (a very extreme one at that). Yet, so disturbing is this dream, that Brown turns cold toward Faith as he starts