literature

DARK ROMANTICS
Dark romanticism is a literary subgenre that emerged from the Transcendental
philosophical movement popular in nineteenth-century America. Transcendentalism
began as a protest against the general state of culture and society at the time, and
in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard and the doctrine of the Unitarian
church, which was taught at Harvard Divinity School. Among Transcendentalists'
core beliefs was an ideal spiritual state which "transcends" the physical and
empirical and is only realized through the individual's intuition, rather than through
the doctrines of established religions. Prominent Transcendentalists included Sophia
Peabody, the wife of Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of the leading dark romanticists. For
a time, Peabody and Hawthorne lived at the Brook Farm Transcendentalist utopian
commune.
Works in the dark romantic spirit were influenced by Transcendentalism, but did not
entirely embrace the ideas of Transcendentalism. Such works are notably less
optimistic than Transcendental texts about mankind, nature, and divinity.
The term dark romanticism comes from both the pessimistic nature of the
subgenre's literature and the influence it derives from the earlier Romantic literary
movement. Dark Romanticism's birth, however, was a mid-nineteenth-century
reaction to the American Transcendental movement. Transcendentalism originated
in New England among intellectuals like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David
Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller and found wide popularity from 1836 through the late
1840s. The movement came to have influence in a number of areas of American
expression, including its literature, as writers growing up in the Transcendental
atmosphere of the time were affected. Some, including Poe, Hawthorne and Melville,
found Transcendental beliefs far too optimistic and egotistical and reacted by
modifying them in their prose and poetryworks that now comprise the subgenre
that was Dark Romanticism. Authors considered most representative of dark
romanticism are Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, poet Emily
Dickinson and Italian poet Ugo Foscolo.
Characteristics
While Transcendentalism influenced individual Dark Romantic authors differently,
literary critics observe works of the subgenre to break from Transcendentalisms
tenets in a few key ways. Firstly, Dark Romantics are much less confident about the
notion perfection is an innate quality of mankind, as believed by Transcendentalists.
Subsequently, Dark Romantics present individuals as prone to sin and selfdestruction, not as inherently possessing divinity and wisdom. G.R. Thompson
describes this disagreement, stating while Transcendental thought conceived of a
world in which divinity was immanent, "the Dark Romantics adapted images of

anthropomorphized evil in the form of Satan, devils, ghosts vampires, and

ghouls."
Secondly, while both groups believe nature is a deeply spiritual force, Dark
Romanticism views it in a much more sinister light than does Transcendentalism,
which sees nature as a divine and universal organic mediator. For these Dark
Romantics, the natural world is dark, decaying, and mysterious; when it does reveal
truth to man, its revelations are evil and hellish. Finally, whereas Transcendentalists
advocate social reform when appropriate, works of Dark Romanticism frequently
show individuals failing in their attempts to make changes for the better. Thompson
sums up the characteristics of the subgenre, writing:
Fallen man's inability fully to comprehend haunting reminders of another,
supernatural realm that yet seemed not to exist, the constant perplexity of
inexplicable and vastly metaphysical phenomena, a propensity for seemingly
perverse or evil moral choices that had no firm or fixed measure or rule, and a
sense of nameless guilt combined with a suspicion the external world was a
delusive projection of the mindthese were major elements in the vision of man the
Dark Romantics opposed to the mainstream of Romantic thought.[6]
Relation to Gothic fiction
Popular in England during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Gothic
fiction is known for its incorporation of many conventions that are also found in Dark
Romantic works. Gothic fiction originated with Horace Walpole's The Castle of
Otranto in 1764. Works of the genre commonly aim to inspire terror, including
through accounts of the macabre and supernatural, haunted structures, and the
search for identity; critics often note Gothic fiction's "overly melodramatic scenarios
and utterly predictable plots." In general, with common elements of darkness and
the supernatural, and featuring characters like maniacs and vampires, Gothic fiction
is more about sheer terror than Dark Romanticism's themes of dark mystery and
skepticism regarding man. Still, the genre came to influence later Dark Romantic
works, particularly some of those produced by Poe.
Earlier British authors writing within the movement of Romanticism such as Lord
Byron, Samuel Coleridge, Mary Shelley, and John Polidori who are frequently linked
to gothic fiction are also sometimes referred to as Dark Romantics. Their tales and
poems commonly feature outcasts from society, personal torment, and uncertainty
as to whether the nature of man will bring him salvation or destruction.

Edgar Allan Poe

Many consider Edgar Allan Poe to be the seminal dark romantic author. Many of his
works are generally considered part of the genre. Poe strongly disliked
Transcendentalism.[12] He referred to followers of the movement as "Frogpondians"
after the pond on Boston Common and ridiculed their writings as "metaphor-run,"

lapsing into "obscurity for obscurity's sake" or "mysticism for mysticism's sake."
Much of his poetry and prose features his characteristic interest in exploring the
psychology of man, including the perverse and self-destructive nature of the
conscious and subconscious mind.
His most recurring themes deal with questions of death, including its physical signs,
the effects of decomposition, concerns of premature burial, the reanimation of the
dead, and mourning.
Author Nathaniel Hawthorne had close ties to American Transcendentalism.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne is the dark romantic writer with the closest ties to the
American Transcendental movement. He was associated with the community in New
England and even lived at the Brook Farm Transcendentalist Utopian commune for a
time before he became troubled by the movement; his literature later became antitranscendental in nature.
Like Melville, Hawthorne was preoccupied with New England's religious past. For
Melville, religious doubt was an unspoken subtext to much of his fiction, while
Hawthorne brooded over the Puritan experience in his novels and short stories.
JAMES JOYCE
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 13 January 1941) was an
Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the
modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century. Joyce is best known for Ulysses
(1922), a landmark work written with the stream of consciousness technique he
perfected.
Joyce was born to a middle class family in Dublin, where he excelled as a student at
the Jesuit schools. In his early twenties he emigrated permanently to continental
Europe, living in Trieste, Paris and Zurich. Though most of his adult life was spent
abroad, Joyce's fictional universe does not extend beyond Dublin, and is populated
largely by characters who closely resemble family members, enemies and friends
from his time there; Ulysses in particular is set with precision in the streets and
alleyways of the city. Shortly after the publication of Ulysses he elucidated this
preoccupation somewhat, saying, For myself, I always write about Dublin, because
if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world.
In the particular is contained the universal.

THE TURN OF THE SCREW

The Governess
Although the governess adores Miles and Flora when she first meets them, she
quickly becomes suspicious of their every word and action, convinced that they
hope to deceive her. She is fickle, however, and frequently switches back to being

absolutely sure of their pure innocence. At these times, her affection for the children
can be intense. She embraces them often and with passion, going so far as to kiss
Miles. Her volatile relationship with the children renders her an unreliable narrator
and a dubious source of information. According to Douglas, the governesss
confidant and admirer, she is the most agreeable person he has ever known in
her position. However, he says also that she was in love, as though this is an
excuse for her behavior, which he admits is questionable. Mrs. Groses increasing
skepticism casts doubt on the governesss visions and fears and suggests that the
governess may indeed be losing her mind.
The governess, with her overabundant concern for the children and her violent
suspicions of them, may be regarded as either a heroine or a villain. On one hand,
she seems to be an ambitious young woman who unwittingly places herself in a
position in which she is forced to struggle heroically to protect her charges from
supernatural forces. On the other hand, she seems to be a sheltered, inexperienced
young woman whose crush on her employer and nervous exhaustion at being in
charge of two strange children result in an elaborate and ultimately dangerous
fabrication or hallucination. James provides only the governesss side of the story,
which may be inaccurate in whole or in part. In any case, the governesss account is
by no means the full account, which we never learn.
Mrs. Grose
An illiterate servant at Bly, Mrs. Grose provides the governess with open ears and
loyal support. Although the governess thinks her simple minded and slow witted,
Mrs. Grose knows more of the story than the governess fathoms and is as capable
of piecing things together as is the governess. Although Mrs. Grose is the source for
most of the governesss information, the governess does not take her words at face
value or ask Mrs. Grose for her opinions. Instead, the governess uses Mrs. Grose as
a receptacle of lurid things. Like the reader, Mrs. Grose is willing to hear the
governess out but doesnt necessarily agree with her logic or conclusions.
Miles
Miles might be either a cunning and deceitful plaything of ghosts or merely an
innocent, unusually well-mannered young boy. The governess repeatedly changes
her mind on the matter, leaving Miless true character in question. When the
governess first meets Miles, she is struck by his positive fragrance of purity and
the sense that he has known nothing but love. Yet she also senses a disturbing
emptiness in Miles, an impersonality and lack of history, as though he is less than
real.
Miles does exhibit strange behavior. For example, he plans an incident so that the
governess will think him bad, and he steals the letter she wrote to his uncle.
Miless misdeeds may be nothing more than childish pranks. The fact that he is
otherwise unusually pleasant and well behaved suggests that the sinister quality of
his behavior exists only in the governesss mind. The governess eventually decides
that Miles must be full of wickedness, reasoning that he is too exquisite to be

anything else, a conclusion she bases only on her own subjective impressions and
conjectures.
Flora
Like Miles, Flora might be either angelic or diabolical. She appears to be a
completely wonderful little girl, even preternaturally so, well behaved and a
pleasure to be around. Flora seems, however, to have a personality quite distinct
from these glowing descriptions. When the governess questions Flora as to why she
had been looking out the window, Floras explanation is evasive and unsatisfying.
Floras next turn at the window turns out to be, according to Miles, part of a scheme
to show the governess that Miles can be bad. At this point, the governess has
already assumed Flora to be conniving and deceptive, but this is the first instance in
which Flora seems to be exhibiting unambiguous deceit. The story remains
inconclusive, however, and we never know for sure what Flora and Miles are up to.
Flora may very well be the innocent child the governess thought her to be, her
strange, diabolical turns existing only in the governesss mind.

Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
The Corruption of the Innocent
The governess only rarely indicates that she is afraid the ghosts will physically harm
or kill the children. In fact, Miless death comes as a shock to us as readers, because
we are unprepared to think of the ghosts as a physical threat. Until she sends Flora
away, the governess never seems to consider removing the children from the
ghosts or trying to expel the ghosts from the house. Instead, the governesss fears
focus almost entirely on the potential corruption of the childrenwhether they
were corrupted by Quint and Jessel when the latter were alive and whether they
contiue to be similarly corrupted by the ghosts. Before she even knows about Quint,
the governess guesses that Miles has been accused of corrupting other children.
Although the word corruption is a euphemism that permits the governess to remain
vague about what she means, the clear implication is that corruption means
exposure to knowledge of sex. For the governess, the childrens exposure to
knowledge of sex is a far more terrifying prospect than confronting the living dead
or being killed. Consequently, her attempt to save the children takes the form of a
relentless quest to find out what they know, to make them confess rather than to
predict what might happen to them in the future. Her fear of innocence being
corrupted seems to be a big part of the reason she approaches the problem so
indirectlyits not just that the ghosts are unmentionable but that what the ghosts
have said to them or introduced them to is unspeakable.
Because the corruption of the children is a matter of fearful speculation rather than
an acknowledged fact, the story doesnt make any clear and definitive statement
about corruption. Certainly, the governesss fears are destructive and do not result

in her saving the children. Notably, while the governess is the character most fearful
of and vigilant for corruption, she is also the least experienced and most curious
character regarding sex. Mrs. Grose is married, and the uncle, though a bachelor,
seems to be a ladies man. The governess is singularly horrified by Miss Jessels
sexual infraction and apparently fascinated by it as well. We might conclude that
the governesss fear of the childrens corruption represents her projection of her
own fears and desires regarding sex onto her charges.
The Destructiveness of Heroism
The governesss youth and inexperience suggest that the responsibility of caring for
the two children and being in charge of the entire estate is more than she could
possibly bear, yet she does not look for help. Instead, she deliberately chooses to
view these challenges as magnificent opportunities to please the master and
deludes herself into thinking that the master recognizes her sacrifices. Clearly, she
is misguided on both counts. The master never comes down or sends any letter,
and her crusade to save the children is an even worse disaster. Flora leaves the
estate sick and in hysterics, vowing never to speak to the governess again, and
Miles dies. Whether or not the governess was correct in thinking that the children
were being haunted, she was definitely wrong in thinking she could be the hero who
saves them.
Forbidden Subjects
One of the most challenging features of The Turn of the Screw is how frequently
characters make indirect hints or use vague language rather than communicate
directly and clearly. The headmaster expels Miles from school and refuses to specify
why. The governess has several guesses about what he might have done, but she
just says he might be corrupting the others, which is almost as uninformative as
the original letter. The governess fears that the children understand the nature of
Quint and Jessels relationship, but the nature of that relationship is never stated
explicitly. The governess suspects that the ghosts are influencing the children in
ways having to do with their relationship in the past, but she isnt explicit about how
exactly they are being influenced. This excessive reticence on the part of the
characters could reflect Jamess own reticence (which was marked), or it could be
interpreted as a satiric reflection on Victorian reticence about sex. More
straightforwardly, it could be a technique for engaging the imagination to produce a
more terrifying effect.
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to
develop and inform the texts major themes.
Vision
Throughout The Turn of the Screw, references to eyes and vision emphasize the
idea that sight is unreliable. Vision and the language used to describe it are
particularly important in each of the governesss encounters with Quint and Miss

Jessel. She deems her first meeting with Quint a bewilderment of vision, an
ambiguous phrase that suggests she imagined what she saw. Characters lock eyes
with each other several times in the novella. The governess shares intense gazes
with both Quint and Miss Jessel and believes she can determine the ghosts
intentions by looking into their eyes. Although she and Miss Jessel do not actually
talk, the governess claims Miss Jessels gaze appears to say she has a right to be
there. At times, the governess regards the clarity of the childrens eyes as proof that
the children are innocent. In these cases, she determines whether the children are
capable of deception by looking at their eyes, when it may be her own eyes that
deceive her.
A Ship Lost at Sea
Early on in the novella, the governess imagines herself at the helm of a great
drifting ship, and the metaphor of Bly as a ship lost at sea soon proves to be
appropriate. When the governess goes out to look for the vanished Quint, she
describes Bly as empty with a great emptiness, as though it is a vast, unlimited
sea. After her first ghostly encounters, she decides she will save the children but
later cries that they are hopelessly lost. Her navigation skills have failed her, and
she envisions the children drowning. However, she perseveres, and when she
speaks with Miles near the end of the novel, she feels she is just nearly reaching
port. The ship imagery extends further when, soon thereafter, she imagines Miles
at the bottom of the sea, a disturbing image that foreshadows Miless fate.
Ultimately, the governess is the character who is most lost. She cannot find a
direction or destination for her theories and suspicions, and her perceptions are
constantly changing.
Silence
Sound acts as a signal of life and nature in The Turn of the Screw, and its absence is
a predictor of the governesss supernatural visions. Prior to the governesss ghostly
encounters, she experiences a hush in the world around her. The governesss sense
of a hush is more marked when she meets Quint on the staircase. She interprets the
dead silence of the incident as proof that the encounter is unnatural. In fact, she
remarks that the silence is the specific thing that marks the event as unnatural and
that otherwise she would have assumed Quint to be a living being. Quints
subsequent disappearance into silence suggests that the dead dwell in a realm
without sound, making silence a mark of the unnatural and unliving.
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas
or concepts.
Light
Candlelight suggests safety in the governesss narrative, while twilight suggests
danger. On a number of occasions, the governesss lighted candle is extinguished,
always with the implication that something is awry. At the top of the stairs, her

candle goes out at the exact moment she sees Quint. She views him in cold, faint
twilight. A week or two later, the governess wakes up to find her candle
extinguished and Miles on the lawn in bright moonlight. Her view of him in that light
suggests danger and, in a way, prefigures his imminent death. Later, Miles blows
out the governesss candle, plunging the two into darkness. The blowing out of the
candle indicates a loss of protection.
The Written Word
In The Turn of the Screw, events become fully real only when they have been
written down. The governess at first refuses to record the circumstances at Bly in a
letter to her employer. If she preserves the events in a material document, she will
have reached a point of no returnshe will be forever unable to deny what
happened. Convincing someone through the written word is difficult. Eventually, she
does write the letter, and she also writes down the entire account in the manuscript
that we are reading. The manuscript, unlike the letter, allows her to present events
in a way that will persuade her readers she is both sane and telling the truth. In
keeping with the ambiguity of the tale, the trajectories of both written records, the
letter and the manuscript, are interrupted, which further impedes our ability to
determine whether the events are or are not real. The letter is never sent, and the
manuscript stops short of a definite conclusion. These interruptions suggest the
story remains unresolvedand cast doubt on its reliability.

Context
Henry James (18431916), whose mastery of the psychological novel markedly
influenced twentieth-century literature, was born in New York City. His father, Henry
James, Sr., was an unconventional thinker who had inherited considerable wealth.
James, Sr., became a follower of Swedenborgian mysticism, a belief system devoted
to the study of philosophy, theology, and spiritualism, and socialized with such
eminent writers as Thomas Carlyle, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Jamess older brother,
William James, profoundly influenced the emerging science of psychology.
Henry traveled widely from a base in England, where he chose to settle. He became
a British subject in 1915, a year before his death at the age of seventy-three.
Although he had many friends and acquaintances, he maintained a certain reserve
toward most people. An obscure hurt, as James later described a mysterious early
injury he suffered in connection with a stable fire, haunted him throughout his life.
He never married, and the absence of any known romantic attachments has led
some critics to speculate that he was a repressed or closeted homosexual. Others
attribute the reason for Jamess lifelong celibacy to the early death of his beloved
cousin Mary Minny Temple, the model for several of his heroines.
James wrote The Turn of the Screw in 1897, at a low point in his life.
Like many writers and intellectuals of the time, James was fascinated by spiritual
phenomena, a field that was taken very seriously and was the subject of much
scientific inquiry.

Gohst stories were a popular form, especially in England, where, as the prologue to
The Turn of the Screw suggests, gathering for the purpose of telling ghost stories
was something of a Christmastide tradition.
The story was published in 1934 with an essay by the influential critic Edmund
Wilson. Wilsons Freudian interpretation, that the governess is a sexually repressed
hysteric and the ghosts mere figments of her overly excitable imagination, echoed
what other critics like Henry Beers, Harold Goddard. All criticism since has had to
confront the central ambiguity in the narrative. Is the governess a hopeless neurotic
who hallucinates the figures of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel, or is she a plucky young
woman battling to save her charges from damnation? Some critics maintain that the
beauty and terror of the tale reside in its utter ambiguity, arguing that both
interpretations are possible and indeed necessary to make The Turn of the Screw
the tour de force that it is.
YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN

Context
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, and raised by a
widowed mother. His ancestors were some of the earliest settlers of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony. John Hathorne, one of his great-grandfathers, had served
as a judge at the Salem witch trials of 1692. Hawthorne felt both fascination with
and shame for his familys complicity in the witch trials and incorporated those
feelings into his fiction, much of which explores the social history of New England
and the Puritans.
Emerson and Thoreau were active in transcendentalism. a religious and
philosophical movement of the early nineteenth century that was dedicated to the
belief that divinity manifests itself everywhere, particularly in the natural world. It
also advocated a personalized, direct relationship with the divine in place of
formalized, structured religion. Hawthorne incorporated many elements of
transcendentalism into his writing, including the belief in free will as opposed to
divine intervention.
Hawthorne first published Young Goodman Brown anonymously in New England
magazine in 1835 . Young Goodman Brown examines Hawthornes favorite
themes: the loss of religious faith, presence of temptation, and social ills of Puritan
communities.
Goodman Brown
Goodman Brown shows both innocence and corruptibility as he vacillates between
believing in the inherent goodness of the people around him and believing that the
devil has taken over the minds of all the people he loves. At the beginning of the
story, Goodman Brown believes in the goodness of his father and grandfather, until
the old man, likely the devil, tells him that he knew them both. Goodman Brown
believes in the Christian nature of Goody Cloyse, the minister, and Deacon Gookin,

until the devil shows him that Goody Cloyse is a witch and the other two are his
followers. Finally, he believes that Faith is pure and good, until the devil reveals at
the ceremony that Faith, too, is corruptible. This vacillation reveals Goodman
Browns lack of true religionhis belief is easy to shakeas well as of the good and
evil sides of human nature.
Through Goodman Browns awakening to the evil nature of those around him,
Hawthorne comments on what he sees as the hidden corruption of Puritan society.
Goodman Brown believes in the public professions of faith made by his father and
the elders of his church and in the societal structures that are built upon that faith.
Hawthorne suggests, however, that behind the public face of godliness, the
Puritans actions were not always Christian. The devil in the story says that he was
present when Browns father and grandfather whipped Quakers and set fire to
Indian villages, making it clear that the story of the founding of New England has a
dark side that religion fails to explain. The very fact that Goodman Brown is willing
to visit the forest when he has an idea of what will happen there is an indication of
the corruptibility and evil at the heart of even the most faithful Puritan.
Faith
Faith represents the stability of the home and the domestic sphere in the Puritan
worldview. Faith, as her name suggests, appears to be the most pure-hearted
person in the story and serves as a stand-in of sorts for all religious feeling.
Goodman Brown clings to her when he questions the goodness of the people around
him, assuring himself that if Faith remains godly, then his own faith is worth fighting
temptation to maintain. When he sees that Faith has been corrupted, he believes in
the absolute evil at the heart of man. His estrangement from Faith at the end of the
story is the worst consequence of his change of heart. If he is able to be suspicious
of Faith, Hawthorne suggests, then he has truly become estranged from the
goodness of God.
The Old Man/Devil
In Young Goodman Brown, the devil appears to be an ordinary man, which
suggests that every person, including Goodman Brown, has the capacity for evil.
When the devil appears to Goodman Brown in the forest, he wears decent clothes
and appears to be like any other man in Salem Village, but Goodman Brown learns
that the devil can appear in any context and not appear out of place. By
emphasizing the devils chameleon nature, Hawthorne suggests that the devil is
simply an embodiment of all of the worst parts of man. By saying that the devil
looks as though he could be Goodman Browns father, Hawthorne creates a link
between them, raising the questions of whether the devil and Goodman Brown
might be related or the devil might be an embodiment of Goodman Browns dark
side. Later in the story, Goodman Brown, flying along with the devils staff on his
way to the ceremony, appears to be a much more frightening apparition than any
devil could be by himself. Although it is never fully clear whether the old man and
Goodman Browns experiences in the forest were a dream or reality, the

consequences of Goodman Browns interaction with the old man stay with him for
the rest of his life.

Themes
The Weakness of Public Morality
In Young Goodman Brown, Hawthorne reveals what he sees as the corruptibility
that results from Puritan societys emphasis on public morality, which often weakens
private religious faith. Although Goodman Brown has decided to come into the
forest and meet with the devil, he still hides when he sees Goody Cloyse and hears
the minister and Deacon Gookin. He seems more concerned with how his faith
appears to other people than with the fact that he has decided to meet with the
devil. Goodman Browns religious convictions are rooted in his belief that those
around him are also religious. This kind of faith, which depends so much on other
peoples views, is easily weakened. When Goodman Brown discovers that his father,
grandfather, Goody Cloyse, the minister, Deacon Gookin, and Faith are all in league
with the devil, Goodman Brown quickly decides that he might as well do the same.
Hawthorne seems to suggest that the danger of basing a society on moral principles
and religious faith lies in the fact that members of the society do not arrive at their
own moral decisions. When they copy the beliefs of the people around them, their
faith becomes weak and rootless.
The Inevitable Loss of Innocence
Goodman Brown loses his innocence because of his inherent corruptibility, which
suggests that whether the events in the forest were a dream or reality, the loss of
his innocence was inevitable. Instead of being corrupted by some outside force,
Goodman Brown makes a personal choice to go into the forest and meet with the
devil; the choice was the true danger, and the devil only facilitates Goodman
Browns fall. Goodman Brown is never certain whether the evil events of the night
are real, but it does not matter. If they are a dream, then they come completely
from Goodman Browns heada clear indication of his inherent dark side. If they are
real, then Goodman Brown has truly seen that everyone around him is corrupt, and
he brought this realization upon himself through his excessive curiosity. Goodman
Browns loss of innocence was inevitable, whether the events of the night were real
or a dream.
The Fear of the Wilderness
From the moment he steps into the forest, Goodman Brown voices his fear of the
wilderness, seeing the forest as a place where no good is possible. In this he echoes
the dominant point of view of seventeenth-century Puritans, who believed that the
wild New World was something to fear and then dominate. Goodman Brown, like
other Puritans, associates the forest with the wild Indians and sees one hiding
behind every tree. He believes that the devil could easily be present in such a place
and he eventually sees the devil himself, just as he had expected. He considers it

a matter of family honor that his forefathers would never have walked in the forest
for pleasure, and he is upset when the devil tells him that this was not the case. He
himself is ashamed to be seen walking in the forest and hides when Goody Cloyse,
the minister, and Deacon Gookin pass. The forest is characterized as devilish,
frightening, and dark, and Goodman Brown is comfortable in it only after he has
given in to evil.
Motifs
Female Purity
Female purity, a favorite concept of Americans in the nineteenth century, is the
steadying force for Goodman Brown as he wonders whether to renounce his religion
and join the devil. When he takes leave of Faith at the beginning of the story, he
swears that after this one night of evildoing, he will hold onto her skirts and ascend
to heaven. This idea, that a mans wife or mother will redeem him and do the work
of true religious belief for the whole family, was popular during Hawthornes time.
Goodman Brown clings to the idea of Faiths purity throughout his trials in the forest,
swearing that as long as Faith remains holy, he can find it in himself to resist the
devil. When Goodman Brown finds that Faith is present at the ceremony, it changes
all his ideas about what is good or bad in the world, taking away his strength and
ability to resist. Female purity was such a powerful idea in Puritan New England that
men relied on womens faith to shore up their own. When even Faiths purity
dissolves, Goodman Brown loses any chance to resist the devil and redeem his faith.
Symbols
The Staf
The devils staff, which is encircled by a carved serpent, draws from the biblical
symbol of the serpent as an evil demon. In the Book of Genesis, the serpent tempts
Eve to taste the fruit from the forbidden tree, defying Gods will and bringing his
wrath upon humanity. When the devil tells Goodman Brown to use the staff to travel
faster, Goodman Brown takes him up on the offer and, like Eve, is ultimately
condemned for his weakness by losing his innocence. Besides representing Eves
temptation, the serpent represents her curiosity, which leads her into that
temptation. Goodman Browns decision to come into the forest is motivated by
curiosity, as was Eves decision to eat the forbidden fruit. The staff makes clear that
the old man is more demon than human and that Goodman Brown, when he takes
the staff for himself, is on the path toward evil as well.
Faiths Pink Ribbons
The pink ribbons that Faith puts in her cap represent her purity. The color pink is
associated with innocence and gaiety, and ribbons themselves are a modest,
innocent decoration. Hawthorne mentions Faiths pink ribbons several times at the
beginning of the story, imbuing her character with youthfulness and happiness. He
reintroduces the ribbons when Goodman Brown is in the forest, struggling with his

doubts about the goodness of the people he knows. When the pink ribbon flutters
down from the sky, Goodman Brown perceives it as a sign that Faith has definitely
fallen into the realm of the devilshe has shed this sign of her purity and
innocence. At the end of the story, when Faith greets Goodman Brown as he returns
from the forest, she is wearing her pink ribbons again, suggesting her return to the
figure of innocence she presented at the beginning of the story and casting doubts
on the veracity of Goodman Browns experiences.
THE CATCHER IN THE RYE
quotations explained
Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.
Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it.
Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hotshots are, then its a game, all rightIll admit that. But if you get on the other side,
where there arent any hot-shots, then whats a game about it? Nothing. No game.
This quotation is from Holdens conversation with Spencer in Chapter 2. His former
teacher is needling him about his failures at Pencey; at this point, he lectures
Holden about the importance of playing by the rules. The conversation succinctly
illuminates key aspects of Holdens character. We see his silent contempt for adults,
which is evidenced by the silent ridiculing and cursing of Spencer that Holden hides
beneath his nodding, compliant veneer. We also see how alienated he feels. He
clearly identifies with those on the other side of the game, and he feels alone and
victimized, as though the world is against him. At this point in the novel, Holdens
sense of disadvantage and corresponding bitterness seem somewhat strange, given
his circumstances: hes clearly a bright boy from a privileged New York family. As
the book progresses, however, we learn that Holden has built a cynical
psychological armor around himself to protect himself from the complexities of the
world.
[Ackley] took another look at my hat . . . Up home we wear a hat like that to shoot
deer in, for Chrissake, he said. Thats a deer shooting hat.
Like hell it is. I took it off and looked at it. I sort of closed one eye,
like I was taking aim at it. This is a people shooting hat, I said. I shoot people in
this hat.
This brief passage occurs in Chapter 3, after Holden has returned to his dorm room
and is being pestered by Ackley. Of all the places in the novel where Holden
discusses his hat, the most famous and recognizable symbol in the book, this is
probably the most enlightening. It is obvious from the start that Holden uses the hat
as a mark of individuality and independence. Here, we see how deeply his desire for
independence is connected to his feeling of alienation, to the bitterness he has for
the rest of the world. It remains a symbol of his scorn for convention. Holden
shoots people in his own way: when he is in this cynical frame of mind, he

expends all of his mental energy denigrating the people around him. He desires
independence because he feels that the world is an inhospitable, ugly place that, he
feels, deserves only contempt.
The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right
where it was. Nobodyd move. . . . Nobodyd be different. The only thing that would
be different would be you.
Chapter 16. Killing time before his date with Sally, Holden decides to walk from
Central Park to the Museum of Natural History. He has already demonstrated that he
fears and does not know how to deal with conflict, confusion, and change. The
museum presents him with a vision of life he can understand: it is frozen, silent, and
always the same. Holden can think about and judge the Eskimo in the display case,
but the Eskimo will never judge him back. It troubles him that he has changed each
time he returns, while the museums displays remain completely the same. They
represent the simple, idealistic, manageable vision of life that Holden wishes he
could live.
It is significant that in the final sentence Holden uses the second-person pronoun
you instead of the first-person me. It seems to be an attempt to distance
himself from the inevitable process of change. But the impossibility of such a
fantasy is the tragedy of Holdens situation: rather than face the challenges around
him, he retreats to a fantasy world of his own making. When he actually gets to the
museum, he decides not to go in; that would require disturbing his fragile
imaginative construction by making it encounter the real world.
. . . Im standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to
catch everybody if they start to go over the cliffI mean if theyre running and they
dont look where theyre going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them.
Thats all Id do all day. Id just be the catcher in the rye and all.
This is perhaps the most famous in the book. It occurs in Chapter 22, after Holden
has slipped quietly back into his apartment and is speaking with Phoebe. Phoebe
asks Holden what he wants to do with his life. Holden responds with this image,
which reveals his fantasy of idealistic childhood and of his role as the protector of
innocence. His response makes sense, given what we already know about Holden.
He believes children are simple and innocent. The fact that he is having this
conversation with Phoebe, a child who is anything but simple and innocent, reveals
the oversimplification of his worldview. Holden himself realizes this to a degree
when he acknowledges that his idea is crazy, yet he cannot come up with
anything more pragmatic; he has trouble seeing the world in any other way. His
catcher in the rye fantasy reflects his innocence; on the other hand, it represents his
extreme disconnection from reality and his nave view of the world.

Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
Alienation as a Form of Self-Protection
Throughout the novel, Holden seems to be excluded from and victimized by the
world around him. As he says to Mr. Spencer, he feels trapped on the other side of
life, and he continually attempts to find his way in a world in which he feels he
doesnt belong.
As the novel progresses, we begin to perceive that Holdens alienation is his way of
protecting himself. Just as he wears his hunting hat (see Symbols, below) to
advertise his uniqueness, he uses his isolation as proof that he is better than
everyone else around him and therefore above interacting with them. The truth is
that interactions with other people usually confuse and overwhelm him, and his
cynical sense of superiority serves as a type of self-protection. Thus, Holdens
alienation is the source of what little stability he has in his life.
As readers, we can see that Holdens alienation is the cause of most of his pain. He
never addresses his own emotions directly, nor does he attempt to discover the
source of his troubles. He desperately needs human contact and love, but his
protective wall of bitterness prevents him from looking for such interaction.
Alienation is both the source of Holdens strength and the source of his problems.
For example, his loneliness propels him into his date with Sally Hayes, but his need
for isolation causes him to insult her and drive her away. Similarly, he longs for the
meaningful connection he once had with Jane Gallagher, but he is too frightened to
make any real effort to contact her. He depends upon his alienation, but it destroys
him.
The Painfulness of Growing Up
According to most analyses, The Catcher in the Rye is a bildungsroman, a novel
about a young characters growth into maturity. While it is appropriate to discuss
the novel in such terms, Holden Caulfield is an unusual protagonist for a
bildungsroman because his central goal is to resist the process of maturity itself. As
his thoughts about the Museum of Natural History demonstrate, Holden fears
change and is overwhelmed by complexity. He wants everything to be easily
understandable and eternally fixed, like the statues of Eskimos and Indians in the
museum. He is frightened because he is guilty of the sins he criticizes in others, and
because he cant understand everything around him. But he refuses to acknowledge
this fear, expressing it only in a few instancesfor example, when he talks about
sex and admits that [s]ex is something I just dont understand. I swear to God I
dont (Chapter 9).
Instead of acknowledging that adulthood scares and mystifies him, Holden invents a
fantasy that adulthood is a world of superficiality and hypocrisy (phoniness), while
childhood is a world of innocence, curiosity, and honesty. Nothing reveals his image
of these two worlds better than his fantasy about the catcher in the rye: he
imagines childhood as an idyllic field of rye in which children romp and play;

adulthood, for the children of this world, is equivalent to deatha fatal fall over the
edge of a cliff. His created understandings of childhood and adulthood allow Holden
to cut himself off from the world by covering himself with a protective armor of
cynicism. But as the book progresses, Holdens experiences, particularly his
encounters with Mr. Antolini and Phoebe, reveal the shallowness of his conceptions.
The Phoniness of the Adult World
Phoniness, which is probably the most famous phrase from The Catcher in the
Rye, is one of Holdens favorite concepts. It is his catch-all for describing the
superficiality, hypocrisy, pretension, and shallowness that he encounters in the
world around him. In Chapter 22, just before he reveals his fantasy of the catcher in
the rye, Holden explains that adults are inevitably phonies, and, whats worse, they
cant see their own phoniness. Phoniness, for Holden, stands as an emblem of
everything thats wrong in the world around him and provides an excuse for him to
withdraw into his cynical isolation.
Though oversimplified, Holdens observations are not entirely inaccurate. He can be
a highly insightful narrator, and he is very aware of superficial behavior in those
around him. Throughout the novel he encounters many characters who do seem
affected, pretentious, or superficialSally Hayes, Carl Luce, Maurice and Sunny, and
even Mr. Spencer stand out as examples. Some characters, like Maurice and Sunny,
are genuinely harmful. But although Holden expends so much energy searching for
phoniness in others, he never directly observes his own phoniness. His deceptions
are generally pointless and cruel and he notes that he is a compulsive liar. For
example, on the train to New York, he perpetrates a mean-spirited and needless
prank on Mrs. Morrow. Hed like us to believe that he is a paragon of virtue in a
world of phoniness, but that simply isnt the case. Although hed like to believe that
the world is a simple place, and that virtue and innocence rest on one side of the
fence while superficiality and phoniness rest on the other, Holden is his own
counterevidence. The world is not as simple as hed likeand needsit to be; even
he cannot adhere to the same black-and-white standards with which he judges
other people.
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to
develop and inform the texts major themes.
Loneliness
Holdens loneliness, a more concrete manifestation of his alienation problem, is a
driving force throughout the book. Most of the novel describes his almost manic
quest for companionship as he flits from one meaningless encounter to another. Yet,
while his behavior indicates his loneliness, Holden consistently shies away from
introspection and thus doesnt really know why he keeps behaving as he does.
Because Holden depends on his isolation to preserve his detachment from the world
and to maintain a level of self-protection, he often sabotages his own attempts to

end his loneliness. For example, his conversation with Carl Luce and his date with
Sally Hayes are made unbearable by his rude behavior. His calls to Jane Gallagher
are aborted for a similar reason: to protect his precious and fragile sense of
individuality. Loneliness is the emotional manifestation of the alienation Holden
experiences; it is both a source of great pain and a source of his security.
Relationships, Intimacy, and Sexuality
Relationships, intimacy, and sexuality are also recurring motifs relating to the larger
theme of alienation. Both physical and emotional relationships offer Holden
opportunity to break out of his isolated shell. They also represent what he fears
most about the adult world: complexity, unpredictability, and potential for conflict
and change. As he demonstrates at the Museum of Natural History, Holden likes the
world to be silent and frozen, predictable and unchanging. As he watches Phoebe
sleep, Holden projects his own idealizations of childhood onto her. But in real-world
relationships, people talk back, and Phoebe reveals how different her childhood is
from Holdens romanticized notion. Because people are unpredictable, they
challenge Holden and force him to question his senses of self-confidence and selfworth. For intricate and unspoken reasons, seemingly stemming from Allies death,
Holden has trouble dealing with this kind of complexity. As a result, he has isolated
himself and fears intimacy. Although he encounters opportunities for both physical
and emotional intimacy, he bungles them all, wrapping himself in a psychological
armor of critical cynicism and bitterness. Even so, Holden desperately continues
searching for new relationships, always undoing himself only at the last moment.
Lying and Deception
Lying and deception are the most obvious and hurtful elements of the larger
category of phoniness. Holdens definition of phoniness relies mostly on a kind of
self-deception: he seems to reserve the most scorn for people who think that they
are something they are not or who refuse to acknowledge their own weaknesses.
But lying to others is also a kind of phoniness, a type of deception that indicates
insensitivity, callousness, or even cruelty. Of course, Holden himself is guilty of both
these crimes. His random and repeated lying highlights his own self-deceptionhe
refuses to acknowledge his own shortcomings and is unwilling to consider how his
behavior affects those around him. Through his lying and deception, Holden proves
that he is just as guilty of phoniness as the people he criticizes.
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas
or concepts.
The Catcher in the Rye
As the source of the books title, this symbol merits close inspection. It first appears
in Chapter 16, when a kid Holden admires for walking in the street rather than on
the sidewalk is singing the Robert Burns song Comin Thro the Rye. In Chapter 22,
when Phoebe asks Holden what he wants to do with his life, he replies with his

image, from the song, of a catcher in the rye. Holden imagines a field of rye
perched high on a cliff, full of children romping and playing. He says he would like to
protect the children from falling off the edge of the cliff by catching them if they
were on the verge of tumbling over. As Phoebe points out, Holden has misheard the
lyric. He thinks the line is If a body catch a body comin through the rye, but the
actual lyric is If a body meet a body, coming through the rye.
The song Comin Thro the Rye asks if it is wrong for two people to have a
romantic encounter out in the fields, away from the public eye, even if they dont
plan to have a commitment to one another. It is highly ironic that the word meet
refers to an encounter that leads to recreational sex, because the word that Holden
substitutescatchtakes on the exact opposite meaning in his mind. Holden
wants to catch children before they fall out of innocence into knowledge of the adult
world, including knowledge of sex.
Holdens Red Hunting Hat
The red hunting hat is one of the most recognizable symbols from twentieth-century
American literature. It is inseparable from our image of Holden, with good reason: it
is a symbol of his uniqueness and individuality. The hat is outlandish, and it shows
that Holden desires to be different from everyone around him. At the same time, he
is very self-conscious about the hathe always mentions when he is wearing it, and
he often doesnt wear it if he is going to be around people he knows. The presence
of the hat, therefore, mirrors the central conflict in the book: Holdens need for
isolation versus his need for companionship.
It is worth noting that the hats color, red, is the same as that of Allies and Phoebes
hair. Perhaps Holden associates it with the innocence and purity he believes these
characters represent and wears it as a way to connect to them. He never explicitly
comments on the hats significance other than to mention its unusual appearance.
The Museum of Natural History
Holden tells us the symbolic meaning of the museums displays: they appeal to him
because they are frozen and unchanging. He also mentions that he is troubled by
the fact that he has changed every time he returns to them. The museum
represents the world Holden wishes he could live in: its the world of his catcher in
the rye fantasy, a world where nothing ever changes, where everything is simple,
understandable, and infinite. Holden is terrified by the unpredictable challenges of
the worldhe hates conflict, he is confused by Allies senseless death, and he fears
interaction with other people.
The Ducks in the Central Park Lagoon
Holdens curiosity about where the ducks go during the winter reveals a genuine,
more youthful side to his character. For most of the book, he sounds like a grumpy
old man who is angry at the world, but his search for the ducks represents the
curiosity of youth and a joyful willingness to encounter the mysteries of the world. It

is a memorable moment, because Holden clearly lacks such willingness in other

aspects of his life.
The ducks and their pond are symbolic in several ways. Their mysterious
perseverance in the face of an inhospitable environment resonates with Holdens
understanding of his own situation. In addition, the ducks prove that some
vanishings are only temporary. Traumatized and made acutely aware of the fragility
of life by his brother Allies death, Holden is terrified by the idea of change and
disappearance. The ducks vanish every winter, but they return every spring, thus
symbolizing change that isnt permanent, but cyclical. Finally, the pond itself
becomes a minor metaphor for the world as Holden sees it, because it is partly
frozen and partly not frozen. The pond is in transition between two states, just as
Holden is in transition between childhood and adulthood.

Context
J erome David Salinger was born in New York City in 1919. He grew up in a
fashionable neighborhood in Manhattan and spent his youth being shuttled between
various prep schools before his parents finally settled on the Valley Forge Military
Academy in 1934. In 1951, Salinger published his only full-length novel, The
Catcher in the Rye, which propelled him onto the national stage.
Many events from Salingers early life appear in The Catcher in the Rye. For
instance, Holden Caulfield moves from prep school to prep school, is threatened
with military school, and knows an older Columbia student. In the novel, such
autobiographical details are transplanted into a postWorld War II setting. The
Catcher in the Rye was published at a time when the burgeoning American
industrial economy made the nation prosperous and entrenched social rules served
as a code of conformity for the younger generation. Because Salinger used slang
and profanity in his text and because he discussed adolescent sexuality in a
complex and open way, many readers were offended, and The Catcher in the Rye
provoked great controversy upon its release.
As countercultural revolt began to grow during the 1950s and 1960s, The Catcher
in the Rye was frequently read as a tale of an individuals alienation within a
heartless world. Holden seemed to stand for young people everywhere, who felt
themselves beset on all sides by pressures to grow up and live their lives according
to the rules, to disengage from meaningful human connection, and to restrict their
own personalities and conform to a bland cultural norm. Many readers saw Holden
Caulfield as a symbol of pure, unfettered individuality in the face of cultural
oppression.
As a recluse, Salinger, for many, embodied much the same spirit as his precocious,
wounded characters, and many readers view author and characters as the same
being. Such a reading of Salingers work clearly oversimplifies the process of fiction
writing and the relationship between the author and his creations. But, given
Salingers iconoclastic behavior, the general view that Salinger was himself a sort of
Holden Caulfield is understandable.

Plath
Confessional poetry emphasizes the intimate, and sometimes unflattering,
information about details of the poet's personal life, such as in poems about mental
illness, sexuality, and despondence. The confessionalist label was applied to a
number of poets of the 1950s and 1960s. John Berryman, Allen Ginsberg, Robert
Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke, Anne Sexton, and William De Witt Snodgrass
have all been called 'Confessional Poets
What defines poetry as confessional is not the subject matter, but how the issue
represented is explored. Confessional poetry explores personal details about the
authors' life without meekness, modesty, or discretion. Another element that is
specific to this poetry is self-revelation achieved through creating the poem. This
passes on to the reader, and a connection is made
The confessional poets were not merely recording their emotions on paper; craft
and construction were extremely important to their work. While their treatment of
the poetic self may have been groundbreaking and shocking to some readers, these
poets maintained a high level of craftsmanship through their careful attention to
and use of prosody.
One of the most well-known poems by a confessional poet is "Daddy" by Sylvia
Plath. Addressed to her father, the poem contains references to the Holocaust but
uses a sing-song rhythm that echoes the nursery rhymes of childhood.