Ambiguity and Uncertainty in Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

As mentioned above, Hawthorne likes to use symbolism as a way to explain to make his short stories feel deeper than what they currently were. These symbols can be anything and anyone and there is no one more of a symbol than Goodman Brown's wife, Faith. She is Goodman Brown's beloved wife who symbolizes his love and hope in God. My reason for this point is because Faith in the story is seen as a pure and innocent woman who remain very loyal to Goodman Brown as he goes on his spiritual journey. Throughout the

He uses, the forest to symbolize the devils home.  Faith was his wife’s name but it also symbolized is faith in god. The Pink Ribbons Faith wore symbolized purity. His wife Faith wore these ribbons. Faith’s name was a direct symbol of Young Goodman Brown belief. When Brown goes into the forest-symbol of evilness, his faith is tested, and he loses all of it when he seen the innocent pink ribbon fluttering in the wind. The staff was mentioned in the story. The staff is a snake. In the bible snakes are symbolized as evil. Browns temptations that cause him to disobey god was because of his temptations. If we didn’t have temptations where would we be today? Would Adam and Eve still have eaten the

In “Young Goodman Brown,” there is a fight between good and evil with one main character being torn between the two sides and every other character seemingly on one side or the other through the reader’s view, although many characters do deceive Goodman Brown about whether they are good or evil. This fight between the two sides and the deception that causes confusion for Goodman Brown is the source of tension throughout the entire story. In “Young Goodman Brown,” every character’s traits and dialogue, the setting, and even colors mentioned have double meanings and are symbolic to the main binary oppositions of either good or evil.

  There is no end to the ambiguity in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”; this essay hopes to explore this problem.

They were having a ceremony for somebody. Little did Brown know that it was his wife Faith that the ceremony was for. He tried to get to Faith as quick as he could but he was too late. “There was a scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices...But something fluttered lightly down through the air, and caught on the branch of a tree. The young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon” (Hawthorne, 49). Young Goodman Brown realized that the pink ribbon was from Faith’s hat. He has lost his faith. She gave into the darkness and will never return to the way she was.

The short story, Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne is well known as one of the great allegories created in the Transcendentalism era. Modern day critics, such as Rena Kob, have interpreted this tale and stated, “Though it may be tempting to look upon the story as a simple “tale,” it is without a doubt a difficult one from which to draw conclusions. The ambiguous nature of the story is apparent throughout.” (Korb 304). The “ambiguous nature” of this story leaves the significant meaning of the characters and setting open for interpretation. (Korb 304) Hawthorne’s story is a great archetype of an allegory due to the fact that it teaches the moral lesson that everyone has evil within them, the characters

Goodman Brown like every character in the story becomes tempted to sin. He admits that he is a horrible person “what wretch am I” (7) for leaving Faith to follow his temptation. But he is attracted and tempted to sin like every human being. His temptation leads him to become a “stern, sad… distrustful” (72) man. After giving into the temptation of attending the meeting in the forest, he gives into evil and does not know what to believe or trust anymore. All because he went away from his faith. Even

For example, Goodman Brown thought to himself as he left Faith behind, “About to turn the corner by the meeting-house, he looked back and saw the head of Faith still peeping after him with a melancholy hair in spite of the pink ribbons.” (Young Goodman Brown). Then, later in the story, Hawthorne reintroduces the ribbons when Goodman Brown is in the forest, struggling with his doubts about the goodness in the people he knows (Themes, Motifs, and Symbols). Goodman Brown questions if anyone he has always known even has the true virtues and morals he thought they did. So when the pink ribbon flutters down from the sky, Goodman Brown perceives it as a sign that Faith has definitely fallen into the realm of the devil (Themes, Motifs, and Symbols). In other words, Faith has shed this sign of her purity and innocence (Themes, Motifs, and Symbols).

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown” a young man’s faith is tested through a series of events. Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” is an example of an allegory, which means it has a hidden or deeper meaning than what lies on the surface. Throughout the short story Hawthorne explores the idea of sin and the psychology behind why people sin, through the use of symbolism and analogies. Hawthorne uses symbolism throughout the story, even though it is very subtle and you will usually not pick up on it the first time you read it. There are many examples of symbolism that are much more obvious throughout the short, and some that are not so obvious, such as the name of Goodman Brown’s wife,

The author shows how naive Brown is because he thinks everything is going to be the okay and still remain with a strong faith. As he continues his journey, he turns to see his wife and the author describes to the reader what he sees. “…[He] looked back, and saw the head of Faith still peeping after him, with a melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons” (305). It's a dramatic irony because Brown's innocence doesn't let him see the evil behind the journey, while the reader and Faith know about it. Once Brown's journey is done, the author shows the reader the last time the ribbons are seen to show how Brown sees them.

Faith is brought to us in life as the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen.(Hebrews 11:1) In “Young Goodman Brown” written by Nathaniel Hawthorne we are met with a dark story that is overcomed with Faith through through the symbolism of the pink ribbons,the forest, and the evil assembly. Hawthorne shows us that Brown was not as strong in his Faith as he thought. In life we are often met with the color pink which represents purity. In Young Goodman Brown, it symbolizes the innocence of Faith.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “Young Goodman Brown” was written in 1835. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, where this story takes place. Hawthorne and Young Goodman Brown are similar, both from Puritan families. Salem is known for its malicious history of witch trials, where people were accused of witchcraft and were tortured, mostly women. Goodman Brown is a young man from this town who lives with his wife Faith, who are both young newlyweds.

According to the writers of the reference center, it seems like Hawthorne tries to emphasize his main themes by having characters touch on them several times, in this case through Faith, who in the end was dammed like everyone else in town, emphasizing Brown’s learnig that sin is a part unwilling to trust anyone and doubts even his wife, contrary to the beginning where Brown’s wife was troubled by him as he observed “Methought as she spoke there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is to be done tonight”(Hawthorne 7). To put it in perspective, Faith was the last person that Brown suspected of falling into the traps of the devil, and upon seeing her also fall astray he knew that no one was saved and he did not want to trust anyone. The writers at the

Writing about the 17th century, Nathaniel Hawthorne used the knowledge of his ancestors to depict influential stories of the Puritan culture and their ideals. Often noting the hypocrisy of Puritanism, his characters embody the virtues and flaws of the Puritan people. One of his characters, Young Goodman Brown, experiences a profound disillusionment when he attends the devil’s ceremony in the woods of Salem. During the procession, the devil preaches with a certain superiority, “This night it shall be granted you to know their secret deeds… where crime has been committed, and shall exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood spot” (44). Goodman Brown learns that those whom he had considered as the models of morality are actually sinners. The devil accentuates the point that not only these people are sinners,

As previously mentioned, Young Goodman Brown is driven by his family and Faith, both his wife and religion. However, Hawthorne presents a symbolic and physical description of Faith, other than her name and character itself, through her pink ribbons. The color of the ribbons subtly reveal Faith’s morals because pink is created with the combination of the colors white, which artistically depicts purity and innocence, and the color red, depicting evil and the devil. This ultimately shatters all of Young Goodman Brown’s hopes of what he continually believed to be considered as good due to the revelation of Faith’s conversion to evil. After reading the tale all the way through, the readers begin to question if Faith is genuinely innocent from