My American Lit class is going to hell, literally

To help introduce students to some of the Puritan religious hypocrisy Hawthorne ridicules in "Young Goodman Brown," I asked my American Lit students if they were walking into Walmart and saw a one hundred dollar bill lying on the ground, would they turn it in. No one raised their hands. So I asked who would keep it. It was unanimous. Now my point was going to be that - given human nature to sin and become corrupt - a Puritan might say they'll return it, but they would be tempted to keep it. I told my class that at least they didn't have to worry about being hypocrites! They all fully acknowledged they're ready to break the good old commandment of "Thou Shall Not Steal" and to commit the Deadly Sin of "Greed." So I told them all that they were going to hell.

But at least "Young Goodman Brown" gets better and better each time I read it. The imagery in the forest struck me this time. I love his imagery of "the black mass" of clouds that move in when the devil leaves Brown in the middle of the forest.

Once we finish "YGB," we'll read Stephen King's hommage to it, "The Man in the Black Suit" (the 1996 O Henry Award winner for best short story).