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Good Night And Good Luck: A Literary Analysis

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Humanity as a whole has always been perturbed by the unknown. There is nothing more unsettling than finding oneself drowning in ambiguity and posing questions none have answers to. Of course, when one is experiencing this excruciating kind of fear, they turn to the people they trust most for answers. These are the ones that have always risen up and shown leadership among the many, or the governing body of their society. However, there are many cases in which these authority figures have been the inception of such a notion. Whether driven by paranoia or a hunger for control, the trepidation is taught to the people by the ones in charge, creating a climate of fear. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck are two sources in which this pattern is present. Both 17th century Puritanism and 1950s McCarthyism demonstrate that fear itself is born through the actions of members higher in society and trickles down to the common man.

Puritanism is a religion that centralized itself around the concept of predestination and erasure of all types of sin. Because one’s fate was “predestined”, the chances of going to heaven or hell were not only entirely …show more content…

While sinning and communism are not necessarily good things, there was no time taken to grasp a slightly more progressive viewpoint. Traditional communism does not work and sinning is morally wrong. This is certain, but the actions taken by these authority figures is unprofessional and alarms the general public, creating distrust and panic. It is a leader’s duty to inform themselves first and take a reasonable

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