In ôA Good Man is Hard to Find,ö ôYoung Goodman Brown,ö and ôThe Jilting of Granny Weatherall,ö we see all three protagonists, the grandmother, Goodman Brown, and Granny respectively, reject as true the values religious ideology asked them to accept at face value on faith. However, while the grandmother and Goodman Brown reject those values as false, the grandmother maintains these values until her untimely death. In this way, the grandmother and Goodman Brown remain truer to themselves than the grandmother in ôA Good Man is Hard to Find.ö
The rejection of religious values and practices by Granny in ôThe Jilting of Granny Weatherallö and Goodman Brown in ôYoung Goodman Brownö occur during their lifetimes. Granny is a bitter old woman who has been jilted by her intended betrothed and must make her way without much aid. As she tells us, ôShe had fenced in a hundred acres once, digging the post holes herself and clamping the wires with just a Negro boy to helpö (Porter 234). Granny has no time for the values or customs of her society. She reacts sarcastically to the doctor, asking him where he was forty years ago when she ôpulled through milk leg and double pneumonia?ö (Porter 232). In this we see GrannyÆs bitterness and rejection of faith in others or Christian values, though she does admit to going to communion. We see this fully when she asks the priest to stop his ônonsenseö when he speaks in Latin, and when no sign from God comes in her time of pain, she asserts, ôThereÆs nothing more cruel than thisùIÆll never forgive itö (Porter 239). At this point she is talking about God as much as the lover that jilted her.
In ôYoung Goodman Brown,ö we see that despite the religious community in which he lives, Goodman Brown has a vision that might or might not be a dream that shows him the true nature and pervasiveness of sin. In this vision he meets the devil,
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