Resumenes En Ingles

By Michael J. Cummings...© 2003 
Revised in 2010 ©
Type of Work 
.. 
.......Young Goodman Brown is a short story, one of the greatest in American literature. One may read it as an allegory centering on the temptation everyone faces and on the human tendency to prejudge others on insufficient evidence. The story was published in 1835.
Publication
.......Young Goodman Brown was published in1835 in New England, a magazine, and in 1846 in Mosses From an Old Manse, a collection of Hawthorne's stories.
Setting
.......The action takes place in the second half of the seventeenth century in Salem, a town northeast of Boston in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Puritan settlers established Salem in 1626 under the name of Naumkeag. Several years later, the town changed its name to Salem,apparently after the Hebrew word shalom, meaning peace. (Jerusalem derives the last two syllables of its name from the same Hebrew word. In full, Jerusalem means city of peace.)  
.......Salem was a theocracy in which the Christian moral law, as interpreted by the Puritan settlers of the town, was supreme. “Young Goodman Brown” takes place around the time of the Salem witch trials, held in the springand autumn of 1692. During these infamous trials, twenty innocent women and men were found guilty of witchcraft and executed. 
Characters 
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Goodman Brown: Recently married Puritan who lives in Salem in the 1600's. He believes in the goodness of the townspeople until he sees many of them attending a witches’ sabbath in the forest. Goodman is a title equivalent to Mister. 
Faith: GoodmanBrown’s wife. 
The Devil Figure: Mysterious man who meets Goodman Brown in the forest and accompanies him part way to the witches’ sabbath, where Brown is to be inducted into an evil brotherhood. 
Minister:  Church leader who leads Goodman Brown to the unhallowed baptismal altar in the forest. 
Deacon Gookin: Salem Churchman who attends the witches' sabbath. 
Goody Cloyse: Teacher of cathechism whoattends the witches' sabbath. 
Martha Carrier: Salem resident, described as a "rampant hag," who attends the witches' sabbath. The devil had been promised her that she would be the queen of hell. With Goody Cloyse, she leads Faith to the unhallowed baptismal altar. 
Powwows: Indian medicine men who attend the witches' sabbath. 
Various Townspeople
Plot Summary 
By Michael J. Cummings...© 2003.
.......It is dusk in the village of Salem, Massachusetts, a community of god-fearing Puritans. At the threshold of the front door of his house, a young man named Goodman Brown kisses his wife, Faith, goodbye and embarks on a journey into the forest. He is not to return until the next morning. What activity would lure him away from his pretty wife, whom he married three months before, and intothe dark and menacing uncertainty of the woods? It is a witches’ sabbath, a meeting at which he and others from Salem and surrounding communities are to be inducted into an evil brotherhood.  
.......It may be simple curiosity that motivates Brown; after all, would it not be interesting to see witches performing their rituals before a blazing fire? On the other hand, it could be the challenge ofbraving the forest and confronting the temptation posed by evil forces. Such would be a colonial American version of a modern extreme sport or adventure. Then, too, Goodman Brown may truly wish to join the evil brotherhood. 
.......In the forest, he meets a mysterious man with a staff resembling a snake, and together they travel on. The man appears to be a devil figure. From time to time, Brownexpresses a desire to turn back, but his feet continue to carry him forward. Along the way, upright citizens–even members of the clergy—pass by on their way to the meeting while Brown hides behind trees and watches. At the site of the meeting, he suffers a terrible shock when he discovers that his wife—beautiful, innocent Faith—is also there. When a “Shape of Evil” prepares to baptize the...