Losing Faith Young Goodman Brown Essay - 1017 Words

Losing Faith Young Goodman Brown Throughout the short story Young Goodman Brown, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne the main character is searching for Faith in what appears to be an increasingly corrupt world. Faith takes on a double meaning in this story, for Faith is used both as the name of Young Goodman Browns pretty young wife and the spiritual devotion of Young Goodman Brown to the Puritan Faith. The dual usage of Faith in this short story, along with its theme of devil worship amongst Puritan society draws the reader in, and leaves the story imprinted on his brain for a long time to come. As the story opens, Young Goodman Brown is about to enter the forest to partake upon an evil purpose. He leaves behind his sweet, pretty,†¦show more content†¦103). To this Young Goodman Brown replies it is too far, and that his father never went on such an errand (p. 103). In reality, Young Goodman Browns father has walked the very same path, beside the man carrying the serpent. In fact, all of the highly moral people of the town walk in the forest at night. Among the devil worshippers are faces that would be seen the next day at the council board of the province, and others which, Sabbath after Sabbath, looked devoutly heavenward (p. 109). Deacon Gookin, who preaches from the pulpit about righteousness, is the leader of the Devil worship, and Goody Cloyse who teaches the catechism too walks the dark path. It seems that in this town of fraudulent Puritans, no one is immune to the power of the dark one. No one, that is but Young Goodman Brown, for he alone has his Faith. As Young Goodman Brown continues down the dark path, he is continually searching for his lost Faith. His Faith would not allow him to enter such a dark forest where the Devil reigns as king. He screams for Faith in agony and desperation, but the echoes of the forest mock him, and something flutters lightly down through the air and caught on the branch of a tree (p. 107). It is a pink ribbon; the last remnant of Young Goodman Browns lost Faith. The pink ribbon in a literal sense proves that Young Goodman Browns wife is lost in the forest, for her hair is always adorned withShow MoreRelated Losing Faith in Young Goodman Brown Essay759 Words   |  4 PagesLosing Faith in Young Goodman Brown In â€Å"Young Goodman Brown,† by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Goodman Brown is tempted by the evil that surrounds him and he must keep his faith in order to resist it. The use of the events, characters, and symbols throughout the story show that evil is present in the people of the town in which Goodman Brown lives and how Goodman Brown’s faith in them is lost. Humanity is basically flawed and people struggle with making the choice between good and evil. 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Now he sees everyone as a sinful and bitter person, how did this come to be? It all began one night when Young Goodman Brown had a dream that changed his life forever. In his dream he saw his wife and the good people of his town attend a Witches’ Sabbath. This changes Young Goodman Brown`s perception of reality and how he perceives everyone around him to be devil worshippers. The changes Young Goodman Brown goes through mentally, affect

History of Jazz and Classical Music Essay Example For Students

History of Jazz and Classical Music Essay Upon entering a modern record store, one is confronted with a wide variety of choices in recorded music. These choices not only include a multitude of artists, but also a wide diversity of music categories. These categories run the gamut from easy listening dance music to more complex art music. On the complex side of the scale are the categories known as Jazz and Classical music. Some of the most accomplished musicians of our time have devoted themselves to a lifelong study of Jazz or Classical music, and a few exceptional musicians have actually mastered both. A comparison of classical and Jazz music will yield some interesting results and could also lead to an appreciation of the abilities needed to perform or compose these kinds of music. Lets begin with a look at the histories of the two. The music called classical, found in stores and performed regularly bysymphonies around the world, spans a length of time from 1600 up to the present. This time frame includes the Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Contemporary periods. The classical period of music actually spans a time from of 1750 to 1800; thus, the term Classical is a misnomer and could more correctly be changed to Western Art Music or European Art Music. European because most of the major composers up till the 20th century were European. Vivaldi was Italian, Bach was German, Mozart and Beethoven were Austrian; they are some of the more prominent composers. Not until the twentieth century with Gershwin and a few others do we find American composers writing this kind of art music. For the sake of convention, we can refer to Western Art Music as Classical music. Jazz is a distinctively American form of music, and its history occupies a much smaller span of time. Its origins are found in theearly 1900s as some dance band leaders in the southern U.S. began playing music that combined ragtime and blues. Early exponents of this dance music were Jelly Roll Martin (a blues player) and Scott Joplin (ragtime). The terms Jazz and Jazz Band first surfaced in the year 1900. Some say this occurred in New Orleans, although similar music was played at the same time in other places. The most prominent exponents of this early music, called Dixieland Jazz, included Louis Armstrong and Sidney Bechet. After World War I, Jazz music had evolved and was aided by the development of the recording industry. Thesmall dance band ensemble grew into the larger orchestra known as the Big Band. The music of the Big Bands became known as Swing. Two of the more famous Swing band leaders were Tommy Dorsey and Harry James. In the late 40s and through the 50s, a different kind of Jazz became popular. This music, played by a very small ensemble, was much moresophisticated and complex . Its rich harmonic changes and melodic counterpoint were not conducive to dance. It became known as Bop, with Charlie Parker and Dizzie Gillespie being the early proponents. In the last twenty years there has been a combination of Jazz with popular music of the US and Latin America. This modern Jazz music has been called Fusion. Present day exponents include Pat Metheny and Chic Corea. There has also been a return to the sound of Bop in the last ten years by such musicians as trumpeter Winton Marsalis and his brother Branford, a saxophonist. Lets focus on the instrumentation of the two kinds of music. In Classical music, both large orchestras and small ensembles are used. But generally, the greatest and most prominent compositions are for the larger symphony orchestra. The largest part of the orchestra is the string section consisting of violins, violas, cellos and string basses. These instruments were invented very early in medieval times but really matured into their present form during the late 18th century. The wind instruments, comprised of brass and woodwinds, took longer to mature. The brass section in particular did not posses the ability to play chromatically (in all keys) until the advent of valves which allowed the length of the instrument to be changed while playing. This occurred around the middle to late 19th century. Consequently, the brass instruments are less prominent in the music of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven along with their contemporaries. Late 19th and early 20th century composers make use of a very large orchestra with all the fully developed wind instruments. Some of the master orchestrator/composers of this time were: Wagner, Rimskey-Korsakov, Ravel and Stravinsky. Currently, composers also make use of the full orchestra but with the addition of increasingly larger percussion sections which add many unique and unheard of sounds than in earlier music. My Long March EssayIn Classical music, modern listeners are mostly unaware of the fact that many of the great composers of the past were not onlyexcellent performers but also great improvisers. Starting with J.S. Bach (1685-1750), the greatest composer of the Baroque era, he in fact made his living through his great skill as an improvisor. It was common for the Lutheran Church organist of his day be able to improvise on choral melodies and Bach was considered one of the greatest at this. There are written accounts of other composers improvisational abilities including Mozart (1756-1791), Beethoven (1770-1829), and Franz Liszt (1811-1886). Yet, as time went on, improvising gave way to the composers desire to exert complete control over his music. By the late 19th century, improvising was rare and not used at all in public performances of classical music. In summation, we can say that Jazz and Classical music represent two approaches to Art Music. The Classical composer or performer has a long and rich body of music in written form that he uses to learn from while the Jazz musician uses a body of recorded music to learn. Because of its small size, the modern Jazz ensemble allows loose interaction while the symphony orchestras large size and diversity of instruments provides many different sounds and wide dynamic range. In classical music the composer strives for control; he uses printed music to guide and direct the musicians through the conductor. In Jazz music, the songs are loosely composed, thus forming a basis for individual expression within an ensemble. When you go to hear asymphony, you hear an orchestra conducted by the conductor playing a composition. When you go to a Jazz club you hear a small jazz ensemble interacting and improvising a song. Both of these kinds of music provide rich expression and detail to the serious lis tener. They take different paths to reach their final form but give a person equal opportunities to appreciate the creative output of each.