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Perception In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

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Perception. The way you interpret and see someone or something. Everything, living and nonliving, can be perceived in a different way. No two people can possibly view the same object in the exact same manner, or perspective. Events, like crimes for example, are not perceived in the exact same way by two people, and should not be heavily relied on. Perceptions often turn out faulty, and can prove to be false or in error. A person’s perception of something is formed based on a variety of situations including the person’s emotional state, beliefs and morals, and level of interest in the person or situation. Multiple examples, including real life situations and occurrences both in the short story Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne and …show more content…

Many people do not like to deal with negative things, and usually completely ignore any aspects of a person or object that are negative without even realizing it. In Young Goodman Brown, Goodman Brown perceives his wife as perfect: “Well, she’s a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night I’ll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven” (page 7). Brown perceives his wife as a perfect and completely pure figure, but he does not realize that no person or object can be perfect, and everything has a small aspect of evil and wrongdoing in it. Brown in a sense sees Faith as a celebrity. This created the vision that Faith’s life was completely perfect, and she had everything she could ever ask for, but in reality, her life was pretty far from it. Another example of this interpretation of perception is found in the poem “Richard Cory” by Edwin Arlington Robinson: “In fine, we thought that he was everything / To make us wish that we were in his place” (lines 11-12). The townsfolk from this poem also view Richard Cory as a celebrity in a sense, and ended up being completely on the other side of the spectrum where Richard’s life was concerned. These examples prove that nothing can be perfect, including one’s perception of someone or something

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