The Organization of the Massachusetts Bay Colony

Men like Mather believed he and the members of his community who believed as he did maintained a monopoly on virtue and goodness. Such thinking allowed for the justification of treating others uncharitably and unkindly who did not conform to the Puritan ideal of goodness. However, such an ideal was a man-made valuation and represents intolerance and evil when used against others merely because they hold different ôvaluesö or beliefs. Had Mather been privy to HawthorneÆs Young Goodman Brown, he might have been able to see through his hypocrisy and moral righteousness. For in Young Goodman Brown, Goodman Brown meets a mysterious older man in the woods who is portrayed as the devil. During this encounter, the stranger informs Goodman Brown that he is not the first to walk this path but that his

. . .
enough independence to question those values, which means they trap him but do not console him. Thus they destroy him. The moral superiority and preconceptions held by Goodman Brown make him view anything that does not coincide with his beliefs and preconceptions as ôotherö and ôsuspiciousö or ôevil.ö Ration and logic are abandoned by Brown in favor of the irrational and supernatural. Brown deliberately conjures what is unnatural, which is the irrational and supernatural, and second interprets all of the rest of his real-world experience as if the only ôrealö reality was the horror of the adventure. In other words, like Mather and others responsible for the witch trials, he has abandoned human reason and the use of logic. It is a final twist of irony that Goodman Brown embodies the Diabolism that Cotton Mather describes, though not for the reasons Mather would have thought prior to reading Young Goodman Brown. That is, Goodman Brown thinks he is correctly interpreting the world, but because he has abandoned logic he is wrong. He does not really have the power to see inside the hearts or souls of those who may be in league with the Devil. The evil that he sees in others he has let into his own heart because he has abandone
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Goodman Brown, Badge Courage, African Americans, Rebecca Harding-Davis, Cotton Mather, According Becker, Mather Puritans, Peter Pauper1950, Huckleberry Finn, Mather Puritanism, goodman brown, human dignity, cotton mather, inner force, inner strength, hawthorne 1900, maintain human dignity, aug 11, 11 2003, viewed aug, maintain human, viewed aug 11, aug 11 2003, inner force strength, red badge courage,
Approximate Word count = 3220
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)

More Essays on The Organization of the Massachusetts Bay Colony