American Literature

In her essay, Bradley examines the possible German philosophical influence on Chopins story, concentrating on the influence of  The Birth of Tragedy  by Frederick Nietzsche By looking at the text and Chopins own philosophical leanings, Bradley attempts to more deeply understand the message behind Edna Pontelliers choices. In particular, it helps to understand the motivations for the ending of the story, where Edna dies. Bradley notes that in some ways The Awakening mirrors  The Birth...

The meeting of good and evil, faith and cynicism, is most effectively accomplished in the forests of Young Goodman Brown.  These forests, or wilderness, represent a divergence between the Puritan ideals of the time and the actual behavior of human beings within that Puritan caricature.  In order to support this thesis, that the wilderness functions as a place where hypocrisy and falsehoods are revealed, this essay will examine how Hawthorne used the wilderness to demonstrate the difference...