Questions:
Interpretation and imaging
PART ONE
Need enough assistance/guidance to do a two page response to the following:
Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Young Goodman Brown"
Can't determine which of these interpretations makes the most sense. I also need help understanding why.
Is Young Goodman Brown's journey into the forest an evil dream (perhaps inspired by the devil)?
Is his journey a dream vision telling him the truth about human nature?
Is his journey a symbolic acting out of his own paranoid fears and suspicions about others?
Is his journey a symbolic acting out of his own sinful nature, his secret inclination toward evil?
Is Hawthorne's vision of evil in this story a re-creation of a historical cycle that his generation had left behind? Or is it his own view?
PART TWO
Sometimes in Winter by Linda Pastan
when I look into
the fragile faces,
of those I love,
I long to be
one of those people who skate
over the surface
of their lives, scorning
the ice with patterns
of their own making.
people who have
no children,
who are attached
to earth only by
silver blades moving
at high speed,
who have learned to use
the medium of the cold
to dance in.
Need assistance determining just how she uses imagery to advance theme. I'm just not able to put the concept together. Some guidance/assistance would be greatly appreciated.