Friday, October 31, 2008
Gloom v. Cheerfulness
Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Young Goodman Brown" strikes me today as a spooky Halloween morality tale. He may just have written it for fun, to entertain a room full of children around a holiday hearth. Of course, we are probably right to read it also as commentary on the dislocations of the Puritan temperament which led to the abuses of the Salem Witch Trials. But, Hawthorne may in addition have thought to make a case against the affectation of a gloomy disposition in response to the presence of evil in the world. Therein lies its anagogic value as a morality tale. Hawthorne is reminding us of the importance of cheerfulness, of lightness, much as Nietzsche did later.
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1 comment:
Criticism of puritanism, yes; an exploration of how one, esp one with a puritan mindset, responds to evil, yes. Not sure we can go hence to "lightness and cheerfulness," though--this would relocate us outside the parameters of Hawthorne's worldview--though a "correction" of puritan worldviews is certainly the larger moral tale, and I'm tickled "pink" that you point it out...
Connection to the philosopher is interesting, though, and perhaps his vision is not so lighthearted, from a more comprehensive perspective?
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