Young Goodman Brown: Verisimilitude

Verisimilitude means the appearance of being true or real. This is what Young Goodman Brown was going through during his "journey" through the woods. What business would a seemingly normal Puritan man have in the depths of the forest late at night?
Nathaniel Hawthorne's take on Goodman Brown's journey through the woods is quite a dark twisted story of Brown's past and his family secrets and his future. However, the main theme is Brown questioning his faith. The fact that Hawthorne named Brown's wife Faith, is a huge symbol/ foreshadowing to the rest of the story. "And Faith, as his wife was named..." is a huge precursor to what Hawthorne wants the reader to think as they read the story. Also this double entendre of a phrase "Faith kept me back a while...", is a very obvious clue that Hawthorne has struggled with his own faith in his family. As many people know, Nathaniel Hawthorne's family were largely involved with the Salem witch trials. Hawthorne has condemned their involvement and it shows in his writing.

As I was reading, I noticed some of the vocabulary used by Hawthorne was very telling that this entire story may in fact be a dream or hallucination of the characters. For example, the words used to describe the person Brown is meeting are "figure"and "appearance" and "shape". It's as if Brown is dreaming and this "shape" is what his subconscious has made up for him. All these symbols and hidden meanings in Young Goodman Brown are all part of an extended, intricate allegory.

Position Paper

One thing I have learned from the research writing process that I will use for future papers is that is important to prepare. The hardest part was figuring out which topic to research. I knew which side of every topic I was on I just had to pick one. In order to even begin an eight to ten page paper, you need to set up some parameters for your topic. Guidelines help lead you in the right direction in regards to your view on a topic. If the topic is too broad or general, it is easy to get lost in your own writing and nothing will make any sense. For example, if your topic is poverty in the US, there should be a theme of that topic that is going to be the focus of your paper, i.e. how much and where has poverty grown in the past decade. Once I took a position on my topic, it was easier to conduct my research because I knew what I was looking for. Before I started writing I went through books and articles about my topic and pulled quotes and statistics that supported my position. This is where my detailed outline came in handy because I could easily place my quotes in the appropriate paragraphs, then build my argument around those facts. I structured my paper so that there was a good amount of quotes from the naysayer side of my topic, but carefully selected info that enhanced my position.