Hawthorne's Puritanical Beliefs Revealed in The Scarlett Letter and Young Goodman Brown

"Young Goodman Brown," a story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, should be interpreted on a psychoanalytical level rather than a religious one. It is my observation that "Young Goodman Brown" may very well be the first published work alluding to divisions of the mind and personality theory. Although religion is a direct theme throughout the story, "Young Goodman Brown" appears to be an allegory with deeper meanings.

In The Scarlet Letter Hypocrisy is evident everywhere. The characters of Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and the very society that the characters lived in, were steeped in hypocrisy. Hawthorne was not subtle in his portrayal of the terrible sin of hypocrisy; he made sure it was easy to see the sin at work , at the same time however, parallels can be drawn between the characters of The Scarlet Letter and of today’s society.

The time was the nineteenth century, a time of great prudishness in America but born a man Nathaniel Hawthorne that would put the Puritan society and their way to the test. A Puritan is one who follows the English Protestant lifestyle and someone who adheres to strict religious principle; also one who has a strong regard for pleasure sex and nudity. (Webster’s Dictionary, 2003) Born on July 4th 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts and of Puritan decent himself, Nathaniel Hawthorne and his family experienced intense harassment during their time.(Hoeljte, pps 25-26) Experiences that today make Hawthorne not only a great author, but very well liked by readers as well. Nathaniel attended a prestigious school with the aid of wealthy family

Young Goodman Brown is a short story where the main purpose is to show the social issue of religion during the Puritan time. Although the author Nathaniel Hawthorne had not being living in that time, he came from a long line of Puritans. He wrote Young Goodman Brown to show the flaws of the Puritans’ view of religion. They made God seem heartless and mean spirited, someone who just used humans for entertainment. The short story Young Goodman Brown demonstrates that people should test their faith of their religious beliefs and even people considered upright can fall short of their own religious faiths from temptations and imperfections. In addition, the story shows that there is some degree of evil nature in everyone because of the freewill

Hawthorne states, “They fancied him the mouthpiece of Heaven’s messages of wisdom, rebuke, and love. In their eyes, the very ground on which he trod was sanctified.” ( 139 )

"Alas! to judge from the gloom and terror in the depths of the poor minister's the battle was a sore one, and the victory anything but secure." (pg. 98 Hawthorne).

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown,” tells the tale of a man whose Puritan beliefs were shaken to the core because reality turned out to be much different than he was taught in catechism. Goodman Brown showed readers how much he believed in his family’s goodness when he claimed “We have been a race of honest men and good Christians… We are a people of prayer, and good works, to boot, and abide no such wickedness” (Hawthorne 247). Because of this, Brown is surprised when he comes to know that people he thought were holy were in fact advocates for the devil and sinners- especially his wife Faith. People that he held in the highest regard were nothing but the lowest of the low to him now. He becomes surly, loses all faith in humanity, and develops a bitter worldview after this revelation.

   Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne repeatedly portrays the Puritanical views of sin and evil.  The Puritans are constantly displayed as believing that evil comes from an unyielding bond being formed between love and hate.  For such reasons they looked towards Hester's commitment of adultery as an action of pure, condemned evil.  However, through the use of light and dark imagery, Hawthorne displays who truly holds evil in their hearts.  The one who is the embodiment of evil creates hypocrisy of Puritanical views towards sin and evil.  Hawthorne displays that those who expose sin to the public and the daylight are the most pure and those who conceal their sin under a

Influenced by his Puritan background, Hawthorne focused on individuals and their relationships within their community. Works by Nathaniel Hawthorne such as The Scarlet Letter and Young Goodman Brown focus on the issues and hypocrisies of a Puritan society. Hawthorne explores the view that many fundamentalist religious groups have in regard to the alienation of members of a society who have been judged as sinful, while also uncovering the hidden evil in everyone, including the most honorable of preachers. He accomplishes this by developing plot lines, which focus on interactions of ignorant but wicked religious characters with sinful but relatable protagonists.

By pursuing perfection on both political and social levels he had to resist from committing sins since he was a man of the church. If the community found out that he committed a sin he would be looked down upon; which would mean he could no longer be “perfect.” Kumar says, “Dimmesdale implies that he does not have the courage to expose himself to society; he is aware he is living a lie in the eyes of god” (Kumar 105). Hawthorne is using Dimmesdale’s weakness to scrutinize how the internal conflicts of guilt created in the Puritan society and culture to stay “pure” can mentally weigh one down. Hunt says in his article, “This fusion, or confusion,

In The Scarlet letter (ch. 2; paragraph 1) Hawthorne writes “But, in that early severity of the Puritan character an inference of this kind could not so indubitably be drawn.

Frederick William Robertson once said, “There are three things in the world that deserve -- no mercy, hypocrisy, fraud, and tyranny.” Ushering in the Romantic era in literature, this quote stood as the foundation for many transcendental pessimists; Nathaniel Hawthorne was no exception. As described in The Custom House, the introduction to The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne heavily disapproves of his own extreme Puritan past and, in fact, heavily critiques it throughout the entire novel. However, while not directly, Hawthorne criticizes Puritan culture and ideals by exposing their sin in the community. He does this in a number of ways, but readers can plainly see that he chastises the Puritans by portraying them as religious extremists, intelligently

Many American writers have scrutinized religion through their works of literature, however none had the enthusiasm of Nathaniel Hawthorne. A handful of Hawthorne's works are clear critiques of seventeenth century Puritan society in New England. Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown and The Scarlet Letter illustrate his assessment by showing internal battles within characters, hypocrisy in religious figures, atypical punishment for crimes, and accenting women's roles in Puritan society. Firstly, Hawthorne's literature often stresses internal battles in main characters. In both Young Goodman Brown and The Scarlet Letter, these battles are

Through Hawthorne’s use of paradoxes, he reveals his message that due to the pervasiveness of sin, being a sinner does not affect a person’s morality, not admitting to sin does. While Hawthorne makes it clear that other people within the community sin, only one person in the novel was ever publicly vilified—Hester. Hawthorne intrudes into

different image. James Austin, author of The Scarlet Letter: Overview has a different opinion of Hester. He states “Hester’s sin was violation of contemporary social values, recognizing this she rose to humble heroism.” Hester can be charaterized as a hero due to her strength to accept her punishment but not let that define who she is as a person. Austin also beileves that the fate of Hester, wether she is accepted to heaven or gets sent to hell is left up to the mystery of the reader. He believes Hawthorne does this inorder to keep the mysterious image of Hester.