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YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN
Week #3 |
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Close up his eyes
and draw the curtain close;
-William Shakespeare
King Henry VI. Part II.
Aristotelian Analysis
- What is the "inciting incident" (the event which lights the fuse of the story)?
- Where is the end of the exposition?
- Where is the point of attack?
- Any foreshadowing? Discovery?
- What is the play's crisis and climax?
- What is the play's theme?
Freudian Analysis
- What are the very strong hints that the story is Brown's dream?
- 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?
- What among the characters or setting represents the psychic zones?
- What is basic conflict (Id versus ego, ego versus superego, etc.)?
- Why are the important symbols?
- What is the significance of the names?
- Is there a hint of an Oedipal complex?
- What is the significance that Faith is veiled?
- From a Freudian point of view, what does the phrase "evil is the nature of mankind" suggest (p. 96)?
Jungian Analysis
- What is significant about the fact that his journey takes place at night?
- Both the Freudian and Jungian interpreters would argue that Brown's experience is a journey into the unconscious, but what's the difference?
- How would you describe Brown's "persona?"
- What does Brown learn from the first person he meets in his dream?
- What is significant about the male figure Brown meets at the ceremony? Why is this figure a kind of "shadow" figure for Brown?
- Jung spent much of his time writing about the significance of the feminine in dreams. How do we see this in this story?
- What is the symbolic significance of Goody Cloyse? Of Faith?
- What is significant about the "four flaming pines" motif?
- How can we explain the fact that ultimately this story is about "failed individuation?"
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