Nathaniel Hawthornes Young Goodman
Brown and Daniel Barthelme City of Churches both deal with the topic of
religionspecifically, Christianityyet the perspective of each towards this
topic is quite different. Hawthornes
tale, as one would expect from a 19th-century American story, examines
Christianity in terms of trials and faith.
An implicit belief in Christianity is the normative view of the story,
and so the central drama revolves around a character whose faith is tested when
he believes nearly his entire town has succumbed to dark, satanic rituals. Barthelmes tale, a 20th-century postmodern
story, neatly flips this paradigm. While
the town of Prestor is presented as having a normative Christian view (it is a
city of churches in both a literal sense of having many churches within the
town and having a church-like mindset permeating the populace), yet the climax
of the story revolves around the main characters promise to escape the cityto
escape Christianity, as opposed to Browns resolve to escape the satanic
temptations that have plagued him. In
this sense, Young Goodman Brown views religion as necessary to the development
of the soul, independent of the relationship others have with God. A City of Churches views religion as a
suffocating force that can only be escaped by independent thinking in
opposition to the hive mentality of the town.
This dualism is illustrated by the motivations of the main character in
each story, the societal values favored in each story, and the differences in
gender between the stories.
The primary difference
in the motivation of the characters in each story is that A City of Churches
revolves around an outsiders attempt to integrate herself into the person and
private sectors of a new town, whereas Young Goodman Brown revolves around an
established figure of their town attempting to escape the trappings of that
society (hence, the concrete detail of the separation of Brown from his
ironically-named Faith juxtaposed with the vagueness of his dark ritualthis
event is as much about escaping the hetero-normative institution of marriage as
it is about escaping Christianity). Both
characters find that their initial motivations are false, though the
motivations themselves are switchedCecelia finds that she needs to escape the
town rather than establish a life and business within it, whereas Brown finds
that he needs to enjoy the town hes in, rather than escape from it. Alsoas should go without sayingis the
personification in Brown (and lack thereof in Churches) of an absence of Godthe
evil of Young Goodman Brown is strongly hinted to be the Devil himself, whereas
the evil of A City of Churches is actually the non-absence of God. Hawthorne urges readers to rebuke the
antithesis of Christianity Barthelme illustrates for readers the need for
antithesis if the original argument is to have any meaning whatsoever.
The differences in
values between each story can be summed up as follows Young Goodman Brown
concerns itself with the readers souls, whereas A City of Churches concerns
itself with the readers physical lives.
This is key to the reassuring moral message of Young Goodman Brown (and,
incidentally, why Karl Marx called religion the opiate of the masses)whatever
misery, pain, or outright boredom drove Brown to ponder a deal with the Devil
is rendered meaningless in the light of the perfect eternity promised to his
soul.
In short his life may suck, but
his afterlife will seem that much sweeter.
Barthelme presents a world in which the fervor of those pursuing the
afterlife has overshadowed any attention they may pay to the physical
world. There is no deal with the Devil,
just shock at the implication that Cecelia does not want to take a deal with
God. In this sense, her promise to find
a way to escape religion nicely parallels Browns sudden promise to adhere to
iteach moment represents a line in the sand in the battle for humanitys soul.
It would be
irresponsible to overlook the significance of Cecelias gender. By presenting a female protagonist, Barthelme
imbues her with that much more of an ethosMr. Phillips effectively represents
the patriarchy of the Church, a voice that has traditionally urged women to
stay in submissive roles. In Young
Goodman Brown, the possibility that Browns wife may, herself, be interested in
the satanic ritual is very nearly the final trigger that determines Browns
commitment. This is important Browns
failure to control his wifeto know where she is, and what she is doingvery
nearly triggers a full loss of control in Brown himself.
Through Cecelia, Barthelme both incorporates
female resistance to patriarchy and, through the open ending of the story,
challenges readers to fight for womens rights.
After all, Cecelia can only escape the lonely island of religion with
the faith of other women intent on escaping the paralyzing arm of
patriarchy. Barthelme also uses Cecelia
to neatly tie gender issues into religious issuesthose wondering what gives him
the right to challenges notions of normative Christian values affecting groups
without power need look for a single moment at the century-long struggle for
women to be accounted for as full citizens of America. It is a provocative question after all, if
only one century of legal precedents and cultural stigmas can keep women from
their equal share in the American Dream, how much more institutionalized are
the repressing powers of Christianity, a centuries-old institution forever
embedded into our culture
Even a cursory glance
of these two stories will reveal to readers that Barthelme and Hawthorne were
writing in very different time periods.
For Hawthorne, the image of a deal with the Devil is the height of
provocative imagerythat Satan himself is willing to lure the good, God-fearing
folks of the land into mysterious pacts, and may very well have already recruited
heavily from everyones hometowns. It
softly echoed the Salem witch trials, and offered a chilling prelude of
McCarthys Communist witch huntsbeing a good citizen was nothing if ones
thoughts were out of line with the correct group mindset. Barthelme wrote in the shadow of Hawthorne in
the sense that he lived in the world that Hawthorne helped createa world where
a deeply-held belief in Christianity and the mysterious,
varies-from-sect-to-sect values it contains was considered the default position
of everyones spirituality, and those who lived outside of it (and thereby
thought outside of it) were branded as outcasts from society. Barthelme was also cleverly playing on the
Christian trope of persecution, by pointing out that when the persecuted minority
becomes the wealthy and powerful majority, that it can be just as bad the
forces it demonizes. And until
individuals are willing to find a way out of their own cities of churches,
theyll never truly be free to think for themselves.
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