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A Good Man Is Hard And Find By Flannery O ' Connor And Young Goodman Brown

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The two stories I chose were "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O 'Connor and "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Both of these stories have characters who acknowledge their lives changed by taking a risk on evil. The main characters, Goodman Brown and the Grandmother, believe they are good Christians who will receive glorious rewards when they pass. While Hawthorne analyzes the Puritan/Calvinistic beliefs that are confusing and harsh, Goodman can 't find restitution. O 'Connor allows her character the opportunity for poise to regain herself. In the beginning, however, both Goodman Brown and the grandmother set ahead on their trips convinced that they are honest people. Brown 's attempts on an adventure into the forest, telling his wife Faith he must go just one more time; even though his wife Faith pleads with him to stay. For he feels he must meet evil and test himself so he can come back with insight knowing that he is, actually, saved. Brown represents humans confronted with the temptation or trying to satisfy their curiosity. After traveling through the forest, Brown is unable to return to the life he once knew. He became "a stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man...from the night of that fearful dream" (273). In the end Brown loses his wife Faith, and his religious faith. The grandmother is a judgmental, egotistical person who is absolutely unaware of her own flaws until shes faced with death. The evil road taken by

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