Hawthornes Characters: Pride Of Intellect :: essays research papers

Hawthorne's Characters: Pride of Intellect Many of Hawthorne's characters wrap themselves in a pride of intellect. The characters become victims of their pride and consequently suffer. Goodman Brown, from "Young Goodman Brown" and Hooper, from "The Minister's Black Veil" are two characters that suffer from a pride of intellect. Their pride causes them similar problems and they end up living similar lives, although they came from different backgrounds. Hooper and Goodman Brown both become isolated from society. Hooper had a revelation, and he feels that he truly understands human nature and sin. However, he believes that he is above everybody else because he has this understanding. This is what causes the major separation between Hooper and society. After Hooper dawns the veil he can no longer function or act as a normal person, because of this feeling of superiority. His perception of an ultimate human isolation leaves him the man most isolated in what Hawthorne describes as that saddest of all prisons, his own heart . . . "(The Minister's Black Veil,228). The veil affects all parts of his life, his fiance leaves him and he can no longer relate to his congregation the same way. "As a result of wearing the veil, Hooper becomes a man apart, isolated from love and sympathy, suspected and even feared by his congregation"(Minister's Black Veil, 228). Goodman Brown suffers the same fate because he also has a feeling of superiority over the rest of the village. He attains this feeling after he sees all the people that he though were good and pure participating in satanic rituals in the forest. He looses all faith in the community and feels as though he is above them because he was able to resist the devil. The lack or trust trusting that Goodman Brown had separated him from the community because he was a strong Puritan and felt as though he could not associate devil worshipers. "Brown, despairing and embittered, belongs neither to the Devil's party nor to the only other life-sustaining cause he knows--that of the Puritan faith and the Puritan community"(Levy,119). Hooper and Goodman Brown's pride of intellect cause them to loose a loved one and their kind and loving nature. Hooper drives his fiance Elizabeth away by wearing the veil. Elizabeth sees how Hooper is separating himself and it scares her away from their purposed marriage. "Hooper's fiancee, seems at first unawed by the veil. To her it is merely a cloth that hides the face she most delights to see. But, like a sudden twilight in the air, Elizabeth suddenly senses the unapproachable inner isolation of the man who wears it, and its'