There is not a righteous man on earth who does not possess the proclivity to sin. Given the freedom to do God’s will or his own, man will instinctively choose to pursue his own. “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Prodigal Son” are two such men who soon realize that “The greatest temptations are not those that solicit their consent to obvious sin, but those that offer them great evils masking as the greatest goods” (Merton, Thomas, 1955). Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Apostle Luke reveal the sinful nature and spiritual transformation of their protagonists using conflict, symbolism, and irony. Comparatively, temptation is the root cause of the internal and external conflicts the confronting protagonists in “Young Goodman Brown “and “The Prodigal Son”.
This is strange, because they still had the strict lifestyle of every society around them, but the townspeople didn’t heed to it. There are many examples of these negative-emotion based character motivations scattered all throughout the story. Character motivation in The Crucible was caused by people's thirst for vengeance, power, and other self-based factors that ironically are opposites of Puritan society.
In “The Lord of the Flies” by William Golding the buildup of savage behavior is present because the boys are not capable of creating an effective leadership, punishment for one another, and enforced rules. Throughout the novel Roger goes unpunished for his sadistic behavior, Ralph is constantly overtaken by Jack, and the conch is repeatedly ignored. Civilization and its rule are a desperate need for humans, when we don’t have them to support us, we end up as the one thing we all fear:
In the The Crucible, John Proctor’s motivation shifts from fear to redemption, which causes him to be accused of witchcraft. In conclusion John is scared for his wife, doesnt want his reputation or name tarnished, and he doesn't want to die but wants to keep his dignity. Johns decision to not confess ultimately led to his death, if he chose to confess he would still be alive and with his kids and
By the Waters of Babylon In the "By the Waters of Babylon" the plot is John, a young man destined to be a priest in his village, goes on a quest to the Place of the Gods to gain knowledge. Even though it is forbidden by the priests of his village to go there, his dreams have told him that he must. After traveling through the woods and avoiding the enemy Forest People, he comes to the Hudson River and struggles to cross it. Once he reaches the Place of the Gods, he finds that it is in ruins. After exploring the god roads and going into one of the buildings, John has a vision in which he sees that those who once lived in this place were men, not gods, and that they were destroyed by fire that fell from the sky.
The title "By the Waters of Babylon" is a clear allusion to Psalm 137 of the Bible, which begins "By the Waters of Babylon I sat down and wept." This Psalm is a lament of the Israelites for their lost "promised land" of Israel from which they have been exiled. John, who is training to be a priest, decides he must go on a journey to the "Dead
By The Waters of Babylon” written by Stephen Vincent Benet, explores the innate behaviors of human beings and describes the aftermath of a nuclear war. In the beginning of the story, the narrator, John, introduced a tribal taboo that is abided amongst “The Hill People.” This indigenous law states that it is forbidden to cross the great river and to look upon the Place of the Gods, for it was greatly populated with spirits and demons. As a manifestation of John’s step towards adulthood or priesthood, John embarked on his curiosity voyage to the Place of the Gods, defying the well established rule within their tribe. Upon his arrival, he stumbled on an elusive and isolated setting with advanced technologies, which he deemed as magic. Due to John’s expedition, he accumulated a plethora of knowledge and soon realize that the Place of the Gods was a superstition, in fact, it was a city of men.
Evil must be your only happiness.” That is to say evil dwells in everyone’s mind. Like Goodman Brown, people usually think the depravity of human must be caused by evil other than themselves. Here, the story allegorizes that it is our human nature that results in the fatal mistake. R.H. Fogle writes, “Goodman Brown, a simple and pious nature, is wrecked as a result of disappearance of the fixed poles of his belief. His orderly cosmos dissolves into chaos as church and state, the twin pillars of the society, are hinted to be rotten, with their foundations undermined.”(Hurley) When Goodman Brown suddenly realizes that all his fellow men, including his mentor of youth, the priest in the church…, have become converts of Devil, he is in an extremely desperate state, not knowing who to believe ever after.
In Phassus 5 of Piers Plowman, Wrath is undoubtedly willing to confess, as well is sincerer about its confession than Gluttony is. Since Wrath was once a Friar, its believable that it can still become religious again and would strive to genuinely repent its sins as well, due to an instilled training or belief of religious morals that are often enforced at an early stage of development. Furthermore, a bartender easily persuades Gluttony to enter a tavern when it should have been heading to repent, Wrath never faltered or intended to miss its confession. Also, Wrath’s confession is longer, which means Wrath thought deeper about what it did wrong and seemed truthfully contrite. Not only does Gluttony’s confession happens while it is ill and hungover from getting intoxicated the night before, but due to those actions Gluttony manages to commit two other sins, in which Wrath does not.
This is where his mistrust starts to form and where he experiences his first temptations to sin. As a Puritan man married to “Faith”, his choice to continue into the unknown leads him to contemplate and create new opinions of his religion. This scene also shows many instances of symbolism that refer to the devil and sinning. Goodman Brown encountering the old man is significant in his transformation because it displays his crucial decision that leads