Anti-Hero On A Heros Journey In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

Faith is accepting what you are taught or told without trying to prove or disprove it, rather than discovering it through experience. Those who believe in God have faith. It has not been proven that God exists; similarly, it has not been proven that humans are kind, honest, and good by nature. Young Goodman Brown is a character in "Young Goodman Brown," who leaves his known world in Salem village and travels an unknown road in a dark forest in the middle of the night, a common motif in literature better known as the Hero's journey, and is faced with obstacles. He must decide if he will carry his journey out till the end, or turn back and not learn the truth about himself and other

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” is an excellent example of the use of allegories and symbolism as a form of satire on Puritan faith. According to Frank Preston Stearns, author of The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Hawthorne may have intended this story as an exposure of the inconsistency, and consequent hypocrisy, of Puritanism” (Stearns 181). Throughout the story of “Young Goodman Brown,” Hawthorne tries to infuse as many symbols and allegories as he can to enhance the overall meaning of his story. He uses the village, Goodman Brown, Faith, the man in the forest, and the time spent in the forest as either a symbol or an allegory to get his point across that Puritans are not always what they seem to be.

In the story of Young Goodman Brown, as a reader we see many circumstances where Hawthorne uses irony in straightforward situations. I have learned from reading several of the author’s works that it is up to the reader to decide the meaning behind his stories. In this paper, I will be discussing the significance of the title, Young Goodman Brown and how I believe there is more to the story than what Hawthorne writes. Young Goodman Browns journey within the forest revealed truths not only within him, but within human nature and society. On page, 1103 Goodman Brown states “there may be a devilish Indian behind every tree.”

In “Young Goodman Brown”, the reader is taken on a journey with a Puritan man named goodman Brown. The reader takes this journey with an evil counterpart who takes him down the literal path of sin. Nathaniel Hawthorne, like most gothic authors, used symbols to elaborate further on some of his major themes including the hypocrisy within the church. He shows the reader that there is more than meets the naked eye with people, places, and everyday object.

In the short story Young goodman brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Goodman Brown realizes something extremely important about the world. Around the beginning of the story, we can tell that Brown is very easy going and trusting. However, that changes by the end of the story.

In contrast to the embellished and bedecked imagery of the letter A, Hawthorne uses gloomy and dreary diction to describe the forest Goodman Brown travels. While Hester bears the letter A unwillingly, Goodman Brown voluntarily enters the “deep dusk in the forest” to conferee with the devil (Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown” 1114). Goodman Brown lives his life as a devout religious man, however the temptation from the devil and the forest prove too strong for him to overcome. Neglecting his values at the start of the story alludes that Goodman Brown will sustain a permanent shift in his beliefs and ideals, either maturing or diminishing them. As Goodman Brown walks deeper and deeper into the forest, Hawthorne describes how the road “grew wilder and drearier, and more faintly traced, and vanished at length, leaving [Goodman Brown] in the heart of the dark wilderness” (1118). The pessimistic depiction of the forest suggests he feels unwelcomed there, alluding to his feelings towards Puritan society. Furthermore, Hawthorne portrays the forest with “frightful sounds,” “creaking […] tress,” and “howling […] wild beasts” to imitate the devil’s abode, hell (1118). While the exquisite design of the letter A foreshadows a positive impact on Hester’s life, the eerie appearance of the forest portends a pessimistic outcome for Goodman Brown.

Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” tells a tale of when man, who is supposedly good in nature, faces temptation and evil head on. The story, much like the tale of Adam & Eve, is an allegory for the evil and selfishness of mankind; for young Goodman Brown 's fight with his inner temptations and his outward struggle with the devil himself represents mankind 's lost encounter within the battle of good and evil. Though it is not clear whether the events in the forest are real or not, the duplicity of the characters and surrounding objects suggest Hawthorne 's true purpose is to expose the evil in all mankind, even in faith or a good man. Hawthorne goes as far to make Faith a literal person and a

The story “Young Goodman Brown,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the tale of a young Puritan in Salem, Massachusetts who travels through the “savage” forest, which seems to grow more evil as the story progresses. The quest through the forest ultimately ends with the young devout Brown witnessing an assembly of holy citizens from his town, practicing in sin with the devil. Although this story focuses on a Puritan lifestyle in the 17th century, it was written in the 19th century, serving as a criticism for the way people lived their lives in that time. Hawthorne’s oppositions to this way of life stems back to his Puritan upbringing and family history. He uses symbolic characters to tell an allegorical story with the intent to show the audience

    Roy Harvey Pearce in “Twice-Told Tales: A Blend of Stories” makes reference to the widely-known poverty of the aspiring writer,Nathaniel Hawthorne: “True enough, Hawthorne planned more than once to write groups of tales and sketches somehow linked into a whole; but he could not get a publisher for them. When he did get a publisher in 1837, it had to be through the help of the hack-editor, Samuel Goodrich. . . .” (107) Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” includes traits of the modest lifestyle which the author was forced to endure in his personal life. Besides this, there was also an artisitc-resources impoverishment because of the tiny town in which

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.

Rhozel Muyco English 113.3 Jesse Stothers October 2, 2014 An Analysis of Evil in Hawthorne’s Classic Tale Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” is filled with examples of Puritanism, which influence the theme, setting, and allegory of the story. Puritanism stresses the importance of morality and sovereignty of God. As Christians, Puritans believed that they should do what the Bible demanded.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Young Goodman Brown" is an excellent example of an allegory. Allegories use events, characters or symbolism as a bizarre or abstract representation of ideas in the story, and throughout "Young Goodman Brown", Hawthorne uses a heavy amount of symbolism, as well as his characters and the events of the story line to develop a religious allegory. A large symbolic role is played by protagonist Goodman Brown's wife, Faith. Also, the main event in the short story, Brown's journey into the forest, holds several major symbolic roles such as the traveler's staff, and the thick mass of black clouds. This essay will be exploring how Hawthorne used symbolism to achieve an allegory within his short story.

In the short story “Young Goodman Brown”, author Nathaniel Hawthorne suggests that every human being, no matter how much he or she strives to be pure and perfect, still has an evil and wicked side within his or her self. The story follows a man named Young Goodman Brown, whose family happens to be Puritan. The Puritan society has strict guidelines for followers in that if a follower makes any sort of sin, he or she may be banished from the community and possibly even executed. At the beginning, Brown encounters two men in a forest, where one of the men starts telling Brown about how the two of them are well acquainted with his family and says, “And it was I that brought your father a pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set fire to

“Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a story about the very thin line between good and evil. The story follows a man named Goodman Brown in Salem, Massachusetts during the hysteria of witchcraft. Goodman Brown leaves his young wife Faith to go on a walk through the forest in the middle of the night, where he encounters a traveler who could be the devil. The traveler begins to show him that evil lurks in even the people who act the most pure and holy. His journey leads him to a ceremony of seemingly good people on the outside, who are actually devil worshipers, and the group is trying to push Goodman Brown and Faith to the dark side.

Using long, run on sentences to detail his story, Hawthorne wrote Young Goodman Brown about a man who leaves his wife to go on an errand. The two characters Goodman and Faith exchange a few words in dialogue in order to get the idea across that they are madly in love. On his journey, the reader learns that Goodman is doubtful about continuing further, but his new companion urges him on despite the hesitation. The temptation of evil is symbolized with the staff that Goodman was offered by the man in the woods (the man himself is a symbol of evil). The story revolves around this theme of real and unreal, temptations, and paranoia that something you’ve seen is actually true when indeed it was all a dream—or was it. It is expected that the couple’s