Stylistic Features in Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown Essay

"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 Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” these literary devices are used to bring emphasis to Brown’s struggle with his moral and spiritual beliefs. Goodman Brown is challenged with an important decision to keep his faith or follow the temptation of evil. Allegory and symbolism of the pink ribbons, Faith, the staff, and the woods are used by Hawthorne to create an allusion that the town’s people could not be corrupted by evil.

    In "Young Goodman Brown," Nathaniel Hawthorne, through the use of deceptive imagery, creates a sense of uncertainty that illuminates the theme of man's inability to operate within a framework of moral absolutism.  Within every man there is an innate difference between good and evil and Hawthorne's deliberate use of ambiguity mirrors this complexity of human nature. Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown, is misled by believing in the perfectibility of humanity and in the existence of moral absolutes. According to Nancy Bunge, Hawthorne naturally centers his story upon a Puritan protagonist to convey the "self-righteous" that he regards as the "antithesis of wisdom"(4). Consequently, Young

The dialogue, action and motivation revolve about the characters in the story (Abrams 32-33). It is the purpose of this essay to demonstrate the types of characters present in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” whether static or dynamic, whether flat or round, and whether protrayed through showing or telling.

Young Goodman Brown's wife, Faith, is also an important symbol in this story. Her name alone implies that she is a symbol for goodness and the Christian life that Young Goodman Brown leaves behind when he departs on his journey. In the story, it says that she calls out to him and he turns his back on her, which can either be taken literally or in the sense of one turning his back on God and Christian life, because he heads for the woods, an implication of sin and witchcraft. In her hair, Faith wears pink ribbons, which are a sign of her innocence and playfulness. When Goodman Brown sees her pink ribbons in her hair, he is aware of her innocence, so when he finds a pink ribbon belonging to her clinging to a tree branch in the woods, he doubts the faith of her and of all those around him.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown illustrates vividly how society and culture can very much influence a person's sense of identity and belonging, or in the case of Young Goodman Brown the lack thereof. Being a Puritan man in a society that scorned the ways of witches and the devil, Young Goodman Brown grew up with a very pious outlook on life. Yet when it occurs to him to look at life a little bit differently, Young Goodman Brown receives more than he has bargained for. The journey he embarks on sheds a whole new light on his society that not only creates a struggle between himself and his fellow men but also one within himself.

Young Goodman Brown is a short narrative written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Just like many of his other works, the story is set in the 17th century Puritan New England, and the author primarily addresses the puritan beliefs at the time which state that humanity exists in a state of degradation and God holds some unconditional love to humans by giving them unmerited grace. “The author mainly focuses on underlying tensions within the puritan way of life” (Jaynes, 2006). He thus uses symbolism to showcase the story of Young Goodman Brown’s journey. The main character delves deep into self-scrutiny and ends up losing his beliefs and virtue.

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.

The conflict between Goodman Brown and Salem, Massachusetts stems from Goodman Browns Puritan upbringing and the fact that he is young and naïve. During this time period, Salem was mostly inhabited by Puritans who are narrow minded and religious. Because Puritan’s lives revolve around religion it gives the illusion that they are all good people who would never step out of line or do anything wrong intentionally. One

When analyzing an allegory like "Young Goodman Brown", the reader must realize that the story is in its entirety, a symbol. Hawthorne, through his writing is trying to convey the contradicting aspects of the Puritan ideology. This is made evident after discovering that Goodman's father burned an Indian Village and his grandfather lashed a Quaker woman. By Hawthorne including these acts of violence, he is revealing that the

“Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a complex tale with many hidden meanings and themes. Hawthorne uses literary devices to propel his story further into speculation of the unknown world. In his essay, Fogle uses examples of irony and symbols of opposites to convey the mystery behind Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown.” Without both ambiguity and clarity, the story would not portray an atmosphere of doubt which is at the core of Hawthorne’s tale.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown." Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed.

     Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes symbolism throughout his short story Young Goodman Brown to impact and clarify the theme of good people sometimes doing bad things. Hawthorne uses a variety of light and dark imagery, names, and people to illustrate irony and different translations. Young Goodman Brown is a story about a man who comes to terms with the reality that people are imperfect and flawed and then dies a bitter death from the enlightenment of his journey through the woods. Images of darkness, symbolic representations of names and people and the journey through the woods all attribute to Hawthorne's theme of good people sometimes doing bad things.

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.”

Ronan states Goodman Brown is “both a Hawthorne and a son of Burroughs—“ the holy man” whose hanging is portrayed in “Main-street” as the ultimate symbol of the witch trials’ injustice”( Ronan 279). As Goodman Brown continues to walk with this older man he starts to get nervous say “too far too far!’ exclaimed Goodman, unconsciously resuming his walk” (Hawthorne 388). Although Goodman Brown knows what he is doing is wrong, he continues walking in the woods with the traveler. Goodman Brown states “My father never went into the woods on such an errand, nor his father before him. We have been a race of honest men and good Christians, since the days of the martyrs. And shall I be the first of the name Brown, that ever took this path”(Hawthorne 388). Again, the importance of family history in the role of guilt regarding Puritan values and practices emerges as the traveler enlightens Goodman Brown about his father and grandfather. The traveler states “ I helped your grandfather, the constable [lash a] Quaker women smartly through the streets of Salem...I brought your father a pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set fire to an Indian village, in King Philip’s war” (Hawthorne 388). This is also the first time when the reader sees the traveler as more than a normal man, but the devil.