No Wonder, For Even Satan Disguises Himself As An Angel Of Light
You think you really know a person until they show you who they really are. Everybody is not who they seem to be no matter how much a good person they might portray. Everyone has secrets. Both “Young Goodman Brown” and “A Good Man is Hard to Find” present characters who turn to God or their faith in a time of need.
That was the case for Goodman Brown, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown, ” when the devil shows him that everyone he adores even his wife Faith, has submitted themselves to be one of the devil’s followers. Hawthorne does a good job at showing how Goodman Brown turns to his “Faith” in other words his wife. He was sure that Faith would keep him safe on his journey into the forest to meet the devil when he soon finds out that she is one of the others also. As he gets deeper in the forest he sees more familiar faces from the forest especially his wife Faith and her pink ribbons. When he sees her, he cries “my Faith is gone”. At that moment he thought that even if he saw everybody from the village in the forest he would be able to run back to Faith and everything would be alright. But when he saw her there it was kind of like he had no more hope that everyone was a liar hence his faith.
Religion is not only a reoccurring theme throughout Young Goodman Brown but also in Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find. The grandmother wants to keep up this Godly image of herself to other people but, she is none of that. Towards the end of the book when the misfits end up cornering her and her family she turns to God. Even though she seems like she didn’t have a care for him at all throughout the whole story. We all know God is capable of any and everything. Therefore, he has the power to let anyone of mankind into the gates of Heaven by giving you grace. The grandmother lies to her whole family and thinks the world revolves around her and she is only the only one that matters. So, she isn’t exactly the visual of a person that you think would go to Heaven. Towards the end of the book the grandmother says to the misfit “Pray, pray…If you would pray, Jesus would help you”. Even though she herself would not know a single prayer to save her own life. She says that only to keep the misfit from shooting her which brings it back to her only caring about herself not even the rest of her family. That is not a type of character someone would even imagine in Heaven. The grandmother has a moment of clarity where she screams “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!”.
The misfit was not actually one of her kids, but she realizes that they are both human and has sympathy for the misfit. God has given her grace just because she dies because t says the grandmother had her “legs crossed under her like a child’s and her face smiling up in the cloudless sky”.
