IVIV (2) Hope

[alice wellintown]

There is nothing wrong with a character named Hope who does in fact
represent or symbolize hope. Nothing at all. It's not banal or even
poor writing. She's a minor character. One could certainly argue that
Pynchon includes sentimental and melodramatic moments in his novels
and in his essays and one might even support such a reading with an
allegorical figure, Faith, Hope,  Charity, Faith, Young Good Man
Brown. Great short story, Young Goodman Brown. And, the more I think
about it, and the more I read Hawthorne and about Hawthorne, the more
convinced I am that Pynchon has more in common with Hawthorne than The
House of the Seven Gables. But Hawthorne's works were written and
published between 1825 and 1860. That was a long time ago. Of course,
those detective and mystery and spy and conspiracy (CIA) novels were
written and published not so very long ago, so it understandable that
readers might confuse those works with postmodern parodies of them,
but to combine such misreadings with allegorical/political readings
and melodramatic and sentimental readings...well....I guess that's
what happens when anything, or in this case, any reading is permitted.

 "Young Goodman Brown" (1835) is a short story by American writer
Nathaniel Hawthorne. The story takes place in Puritan New England, a
common setting for Hawthorne's works, and addresses one of his common
themes: the conflict between good and evil in human nature and, in
particular, the problem of public goodness and private wickedness.

A dark, penetrating tale, as "deep as Dante," according to Herman
Melville, "Young Goodman Brown" reveals Hawthorne at his
best--skillful writer of symbolic allegory and astute interpreter of
Puritan history.

Nancy Bunge comments on Hawthorne's knowledge and use of Salem history
in Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Study of the Short Fiction:


[Hawthorne] did not write out of ignorant fantasies about the
Puritans. "Young Goodman Brown" not only presents the issue of the
Salem witch trials, but a number of its characters have the names of
Salem residents charged with witchcraft, and its major action takes
place in the noisy pasture of the period designated as a witches'
gathering place. (historical documents of the witchcraft trials)

Hawthorne does not simply provide a record of the time, he uses
history to examine issues of community and individualism explaining
both the madness in Salem and much subsequent madness (11). (courtesy
of Twayne Publishers, New York, 1993.)

It's not surprising that Hawthorne was drawn to the witchcraft
episode. His family history gave him a personal connection to the
tragic events of 1692. In The Salem World of Nathaniel Hawthorne
Margaret B. Moore points out:

As for Hawthorne's ties with the persecution of the witches, they too
[like his ties with the persecution of Quakers] are based partly on
his paternal ancestors, in particular on John Hathorne (1641-1717),
the third son of Major William and Anna Hathorne and an important
merchant in Salem. . . . John Hathorne was also the famous "witch
judge" blamed by many, such as Charles Upham, for playing a major role
in the witchcraft trials in Salem and Salem Village in 1692. According
to his descendant [Nathaniel], John Hathorne "inherited the
persecuting spirit, and made himself so conspicuous in the martyrdom
of the witches, that their blood may fairly be said to have left a
stain upon him. So deep a stain, indeed, that his old dry bones, in
the Charter Street burial-ground [view one; view two] must still
retain it, if they have not crumbled utterly to dust" (37-38).
(courtesy of University of Missouri Press, 1998)

His ancestors' zealous attacks against Quakers, Indians, and accused
"witches" were both a source of interest and of conflict for
Hawthorne, who so often explored this history and his connection to it
in his writings. In "Young Goodman Brown" he powerfully weaves family
facts into the plot and theme of his story and, as Edward Wagenknecht
points out, "is perfectly clear-cut on witchcraft, as perhaps he had
to be to purge himself in his own mind of the sins of his ancestors.
In his stories the Salem outburst was a `terrible delusion,' a
`universal madness,' in which `innocent persons' `died wrongfully' "
(175). (from Nathaniel Hawthorne: Man and Writer, Oxford University
Press, 1961)

Ultimately, as Michael J. Colacurcio states, the story offers a
profound interpretation of the "persecuting spirit" and of late
seventeenth-century Puritanism itself:

In "Young Goodman Brown" an entire habit of the Puritan mind is on
trial, the protagonist its unwitting yet not quite unwilling victim. .
. . [Hawthorne] recognizes the finality of the problem [presented]
there: the difficulty of detecting a witch is distressingly similar to
the radically Puritan problem of discovering a saint. They stand or
fall together. . . ."Young Goodman Brown" shows us that witchcraft
"ended" the Puritan world. Its logic of evidence could not stand the
Devil's own test of faith (286, 312). (from The Province of Piety:
Moral History in Hawthorne's Early Tales, 1984, courtesy of Dr.
Michael J. Colacurcio)

Hawthorne and Witchcraft: The Historical Context
In seventeenth-century New England, most people shared a strong belief
in witchcraft, and in the "Wonders of the Invisible World," Cotton
Mather recorded the hellish workings of witches and the Devil against
the Puritan experiment.

The origins of the belief in witchcraft and "specters" went back to
Europe, where, by some estimates, five hundred thousand people were
executed for witchcraft between the fifteenth and seventeenth
centuries. Prior to the Salem outbreak of 1692, almost three hundred
people had been accused of witchcraft in New England; more than thirty
had been hanged ("witches" were not burned in England or the American
colonies).

The flair up of accusations in 1692, beginning at Salem Village (now
Danvers) , spread to many other communities in Essex County,
Massachusetts and was the worst and most dramatic episode of witch
hunting in colonial America. When it was over, twenty people had been
executed-nineteen hanged and one, Giles Corey, pressed to death. More
than a hundred people had been jailed, and several died during their
imprisonment.

Both men and women were accused, imprisoned, and executed for
witchcraft prior to and during the Salem hysteria. In colonial New
England, however, almost all accused "witches" were older women, who
tended to be independent and nonconfomist. An interesting study from
this perspective is Carol F. Karlsen's The Devil in the Shape of a
Woman (W.W. Norton, 1987).

Generally, historians have seen the Salem witchcraft hysteria as
significant because it was the last time in American history that
accusations of witchcraft would lead to execution. The episode and its
aftermath also marked the end of Puritan authority in New England and,
with dawning rationalism, the belief in devils striking out from some
"invisible world."




Page citation: http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/page/11398/