What does YGB learn, actually? What is the true nature of humanity? (And is that almost some sort of Rolling Stones reference, anyhow?) what does Hawthorne want us to decide or believe as readers? Are we meant to agree with YGB’s beliefs?
Day and night. Light and darkness, Good and evil. The protagonist in this story leaves one setting, Salem Village, which seems to represent good, order, white European civilization, Christianity, and so on, and goes into the Wilderness, representing the exact opposite: evil, chaos, anarchy, “a devilish Indian behind every tree” and…. Wait. That’s actually the […]