Unit 1 Faith, Doubt, and Reason

Write a paragraph length answer (100+ word minimum) for each reading question. Include observations about basic literary elements (character, structure, plot, setting, tone, and theme for prose; theme, structure, rhyme, symbols, images, etc. for poetry). Include specific, parenthetically documented observations and/or short quotes from the unit readings to support each answer. Edit each response for clarity, conciseness, and correctness before the due date.
Please number your answers and leave out the prompts/questions in your submission. Introduce each answer by identifying author/title/theme being discussed.
IMPORTANT: Avoid using online sources like Wikipedia, SparkNotes, Grade Saver, etc. in place of your own analysis. If you borrow ideas, words, or other information beyond the course text, they must be documented parenthetically and a Works Cited page included. Instead, emphasize and document your own understanding of the readings in responding to the prompts.
Unit 1
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64) was a sixth-generation resident of Salem, Massachusetts. Two of his Puritan ancestors were implicated in various religious persecutions, an Indian genocide, and the trial and execution of supposed witches in the 17th century, the setting in time for “Young Goodman Brown.” What causes Goodman Brown to “abandon his faith”? Why is his dying hour “gloom”?
Identify the speaker of the following words in Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”: “Depending on one another’s hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived! Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome, again, my children, to the communion of your race!” (100). Does Goodman Brown trust the speaker and his words? What, if anything, is missing in the speaker’s understanding about human nature in relation to truth, justice, and God? Compare these words and their speaker to those of the Misfit in Flannery O’Connor’s story “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”
Leo Tolstoy (1847-1910) embraced a very personal form of Christian belief that minimized wealth and ambition in favor of relative simplicity and mercy toward others. His novella The Death of Ivan Ilych describes the dual trajectories of one man’s “conversion” from the shallowness of bourgeois (materialistic middle-class life) to the acceptance of essential truths, including mercy, transformative suffering, and death. Chart Ivan’s movement away from a life of trivialities to one characterized by the acceptance of fundamental human virtues and truths realized through suffering.
Most characters in The Death of Ivan Ilych exhibit little or no mercy for the main character’s suffering and death. Contrast the attitudes and actions of Gerasim and Vasya with those of any two other characters in the story. Why are Gerasim and Vasya important thematically to the story?
Flannery O’Connor (1925-64) was an observant Roman Catholic whose short stories often address issues of faith and redemption. Like Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” addresses the issue of human depravity (lostness). Two of her characters speak the “truth” about human nature, namely Red Sammy and the Misfit. State and analyze what each says about human nature. Are these characters on the side of good or evil? Does what they say apply to everyone? Does it apply to the grandmother and her family? Are they “good” or “not good”?
Christians generally believe that human beings have a problem that only God can solve. The Apostle Paul writes, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Trace the grandmother’s spiritual movement in “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” What is she like before meeting the Misfit? How does she change through interacting with him? According to the Misfit what did the grandmother need to make her “a good woman”? How does the grandmother demonstrate “redemption” by the end of the story?
Compare/contrast the sentiments concerning death of John Donne’s (1572-1631) sonnet “Death be not proud” with Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych . Do the authors agree or disagree about the reality and nature of death in human experience?
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-89) was ordained a Jesuit priest. His poetry is considered “modern” for its experiments in meter and sound, but his ideas are classically Christian. His sonnet “God’s Grandeur” considers God’s revelation of himself in Creation. Describe what we know about God from nature according to the poem. What images and descriptions communicate God’s grandeur? How well does the poem correspond to Scripture?
Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) has embraced a life-long commitment to agnosticism, the view that we cannot “know” whether God exists or not. She limits her beliefs, understanding, and values to what can be known, observed, and tested scientifically. Her experimental story “Happy Endings” explores human relationships from various points of view. What “truth” does she arrive at? In what way does that truth affirm or question her agnosticism?

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