Hawthorne 's Young Goodman Brown

In “Young Goodman Brown”, after his journey into the forest, Brown changes his entire outlook on life. He has lost his faith and has taken on a life of darkness and unrest because he is never sure whether the events of what happened in the forest were reality or imagined. From that point on he is never at peace because he is always expecting evil. And he is then depicted as a man who never has happiness with his beloved “Faith”, that is his wife and his actual faith in God, or in any other thing in his life. Brown becomes a victim to the nature of evil and the effects that it can play on the

Hawthorne in essence, portrayed Goodman as proof of the nature of evil in man by showing how easily even a young dedicated Puritan can easily be influenced by a complete stranger. This stranger was symbolically the Devil among men in this text. Hawthorne begins introducing the Devil immediately as trying to sway Goodman to follow him on a long journey. By leaving his wife, Faith to begin the journey, Goodman Brown was symbolically leaving his faith in God and entering a forsaken ground by following the Devil. The fact that Goodman Brown left with no regard for his wife Faith’s warning, symbolized the lack of regard for his own faith in God and his fellow human race. This simple disregard that Goodman Brown showed was evidence of the easily persuaded ability of man to choose sin over good.

The story “Young Goodman Brown,” in its entirety is an allegory, a literary device used to teach a religious lesson. The reader is lead to wonder if the story’s events truly took place or if it was simply a bad dream. The story leaves readers wondering why Goodman Brown feels compelled to journey into the forest. “Young Goodman Brown” begins with Faith’s plea for Brown to not leave her on that night. He chooses to go out into the woods and ends up taking a “walk with the devil.” On his journey, Brown struggles with his decision and at times wants to turn back. His conscious tugs at him, much like the devil tempts individuals to do things that are wrong and evil. Brown seems to be concerned with what others will think if they see him in the woods. When “Goodman Brown recognized

Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote Young Goodman Brown based on morals and what Easterly in "Lachrymal Imagery in Hawthorne's 'Young Goodman Brown' " calls "spiritual maturity" (Easterly 339). In the short story, Goodman Brown, a young Puritan leaves his wife of three months to watch a witch ceremony in the forest. During this point in time, Puritans based their lives on teachings of religion and morality; therefore, witch-meetings were surely immoral, and they betrayed the commitment of God. Dwelling in the forest throughout the night, Goodman Brown experiences an event that changes his entire perspective of life. In one night, the event destroys "his relationship with his wife Faith, isolates him from his neighbors, and destroys his ability to

Later in the journey Brown offers his faith as the last reason to abort his walk with the devil: "Well, then, to end the matter at once,... there is my wife, Faith. It would break her dear little heart; and I'd rather break my own!" (214). At this point his faith is still more important to him than his own life. Later, just after doubting whether there really is a Heaven, Brown's trust in his faith is changed as he imagines that even Faith is traveling along the same road of temptation. He exclaims, "My Faith is gone!" "There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil! For to thee is this world given"(217). Goodman Brown's faith in humanity is completely destroyed. He concedes the earth and all mankind to the devil. At the end of the story Hawthorne shows that Brown's love for his Faith is damaged forever: "...he shrank from the bosom of Faith, and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled, and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife and turned away"(221). The journey had changed Brown's relationship with Faith, because it changed his faith in mankind.

Though Nathaniel Hawthorne is an author of many great works, his short story “Young Goodman Brown” still stays relevant because it has themes and subjects that are relatable in today 's world. In the story “Young Goodman Brown,” Goodman Brown leaves his wife Faith, to go into the woods near Salem to have a meeting with the devil. Appearance vs. reality is shown in “Young Goodman Brown” through the plot, the character of Goody Cloyse, and the symbol of the maple staff.

When it comes to the topic of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown, most of us will readily agree that duplicity is a major theme in the piece, or the idea of different versions of reality. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of whether Hawthorne is implying that man is inherently evil. Whereas some are convinced that Young Goodman Brown was good until tainted by the Devil, others maintain that he was evil from the beginning and was completely aware of the evil he was indulging in. My personal view, however, is that Young Goodman Brown was inherently evil, but it did not come to light until the Devil began to influence Brown. This can be seen through the use of symbolism, biblical allusions, and the development of the main characters. While the Devil may have revealed that Young Goodman Brown was not as innocent and pious as he appeared, Brown was willingly indulging in sin and was inherently evil.

Finally, Goodman Brown arrives at the initiation ceremony only to be confronted by the image of his wife at the unholy altar. Although Hawthorne never offers any true evidence that Goodman Brownâs experience in the woods was anything more than a dream or hallucination, the Puritan passes judgment on Faith, and forever doubts her goodness. By allowing his audience to internally assess Faithâs guilt or innocence, Hawthorne forces his reader into a role of complicity with Goodman Brown (McFarland 37). Thus, Hawthorne has created a troubling character with both light and dark facets.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, “Young Goodman Brown”, is a suspenseful story in which we see various forms of symbolism. This story presents us with the protaganist, a young and innocent man named Goodman Brown, which by his name is actually a good religious man. He departs away from his wife faith, to embark on a journey into the woods, he will return by morning. His wife faith begs him not go. On his journey, he finds himself on a dark path and it swallows him up as he advances along the path. Goodman Brown shows us that his faith is not as strong as he thought himself to be. Symbolism in this story, is used to illustrate the uncertainity of Brown’s faith, and the evil that tries to pull him in.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown, Young Goodman Brown loses his innocence as he enters the gloomy forest. In the beginning of the story, he is a confident, faithful man who has a strong relationship with his wife, Faith. His wife is his precious gem who is figuratively his source of faith. According to the passage, “Amen! cried Goodman Brown. Say thy prayers, dear Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee” (Hawthorne 255).

In “Young Goodman Brown”, Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts the negative effects of lying with Brown and his relationship with his wife, Faith. The relationship between Brown and Faith seems loving, as the story begins with Faith blessing him and Brown worrying about her before departing on his meeting with the devil. However, their dishonesty to each other leads to a conclusive end to their loving relationship when Brown comes back from his journey. Another broken relationship is in “The Insufficiency of Honesty”, in which Stephen Carter presents an example about an unfaithful man confessing to his wife that he has cheated on her for the past thirty-five years. The two examples are relationships that shatters, in which Brown stops loving Faith,

In the short story “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, there is a certain uncertainty, deviousness, and a riddle of wrongdoing living within the citizens of Salem. Young Goodman Brown, a very naive person, is ruined when he realizes the hypocrisy of his religion as he witnesses the truth in the middle of Salem woods. His own people worshipping a being that is not God! Ironically, when Brown confronts his fellow townspeople, he is angered by their responses; they seem to have no recollection of what occurred in the woods. Thus leaving him in a state of insanity, where all Brown senses around him are lies. The natural impulse to keep secrets and lies can harm others. This is embodied in Young Goodman Brown, who goes from a typical puritan to an unkind, judgmental, depressed man.

These events provide the main conflicts of the story both internal and external. The internal conflicts of the story are prompted by the external ones. For example, after seeing the magic serpent, Brown became conscious of the evilness of the journey and began to show hesitation about following it up. This is reflected in the devil’s words of encouragement which were addressed to Brown, "'Come, Goodman Brown’ cried his fellow-traveler, [the devil] ‘this is a dull pace for the beginning of the journey. Take my staff, if you are so soon weary."' Seeing the old woman Goody Cloyse in the forest, further enhances Brown’s fear and hesitation and further deepens the conflicts within him “Goodman Brown sat himself down on the stump of a tree and refused to go any farther. ‘Friend,’ said he, stubbornly, ‘my mind is made up. Not another step will I budge on this errand. What if a wretched old woman Does choose to go to the devil when I thought she was going to heaven:...’” This shows that Brown is deeply divided by what he has seen in the forest and is now in earnest about giving up the journey. Moreover, the appearance of Brown's wife gives him a harder blow which amounted, unexpectedly, to a decalration of his disbelief. The appearance of Faith in the forest

Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of “Young Goodman Brown,” was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1804. Hawthorne, born into a Puritan family who was struggling financially, had never met his father. He had died when Hawthorne was but a boy of four years old. This, along with embarrassments brought upon by other ancestors, seemed to affect his writing and perhaps even inspired parts of “Young Goodman Brown.” Hawthorne had one ancestor, a Puritan judge, who persecuted Quakers, and another, who had taken part in the Salem Witch Hysteria (Meyer 322). Both of these were mentioned, or hinted upon, in the story of “Young Goodman Brown.”

Goodman Brown’s conflicts of interest are represented throughout story through the characters. All his evil desires are his id and his reason for avoiding his sin such as the views that his society will have on him is his ego.  Levy said in his essay “The Problem of Faith in “Young Goodman Brown””, “His submission to evil suggests that the demands of the id have overtaken the ego” (379). When the highly respected people in his