YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN
Week #3

Close up his eyes
and draw the curtain close;

-William Shakespeare
King Henry VI. Part II.


Aristotelian Analysis
  1. What is the "inciting incident" (the event which lights the fuse of the story)?

  2. Where is the end of the exposition?

  3. Where is the point of attack?

  4. Any foreshadowing? Discovery?

  5. What is the play's crisis and climax?

  6. What is the play's theme?

Freudian Analysis

  1. What are the very strong hints that the story is Brown's dream?

  2. Why is the dream idea important? In other words, what if the story were taken at face value, and it wasn't a dream--what would be the overall effect on our reading of the story?

  3. What among the characters or setting represents the psychic zones?

  4. What is basic conflict (Id versus ego, ego versus superego, etc.)?

  5. Why are the important symbols?

  6. What is the significance of the names?

  7. Is there a hint of an Oedipal complex?

  8. What is the significance that Faith is veiled?

  9. From a Freudian point of view, what does the phrase "evil is the nature of mankind" suggest (p. 96)?

Jungian Analysis

  1. What is significant about the fact that his journey takes place at night?

  2. Both the Freudian and Jungian interpreters would argue that Brown's experience is a journey into the unconscious, but what's the difference?

  3. How would you describe Brown's "persona?"

  4. What does Brown learn from the first person he meets in his dream?

  5. What is significant about the male figure Brown meets at the ceremony? Why is this figure a kind of "shadow" figure for Brown?

  6. Jung spent much of his time writing about the significance of the feminine in dreams. How do we see this in this story?

  7. What is the symbolic significance of Goody Cloyse? Of Faith?

  8. What is significant about the "four flaming pines" motif?

  9. How can we explain the fact that ultimately this story is about "failed individuation?"

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