Symbolism,Characterization, and Faith in Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

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.

In “Young Goodman Brown,” Hawthorne’s uses imagery to gets the reader attention. In the parable of “Young Goodman Brown,” the reader is set into a twist of good versus evil. Hawthorne depict evil in terms that describe the forest and the old man with the staff. The reader believe Goodman Brown is walking into evil when the woods was mention. Puritans believe woods to be the territory of the devil. In “young Goodman Brown” the forest is a symbol of the devil's home. “He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind. It was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveler knows not who may be

Goodman Brown’s journey into the woods introduces us into his own religious hypocrisy. His character is described as young and possibly naïve to the true nature of the world, and Goodman Brown considers himself descended from”… a race of honest men and good Christians” (343). However, for unknown reasons, perhaps just out of curiosity, he decides to venture into the woods on a quest of “evil purpose.” Faith, Goodman Brown’s wife, is an important source of symbolism throughout his journey. She is not only his wife, but she is also symbolic of his spiritual faith. Before setting off into the woods Faith begs him not to go and foreshadows that nothing good will come of his trip. Hawthorne uses this scene to emphasize that questioning and straying from his “Faith” for even a night shows that his spiritual faith is much less established than he displays to his wife or the public. It also symbolizes that Goodman Brown had doubted and compromised his faith before he even began his voyage into the woods.

In the allegorical short story entitled “Young Goodman Brown”, author Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the irony of words and their connotations to express his ideas. The most evident example of this word inference is the used of “Faith” as the name of Young Goodman Brown’s wife. Religiously, faith can be defined as “the belief and trust in God and in the doctrines expressed in the scriptures or other sacred works” (Merriam-Webster). Hawthorne uses the relationship between Brown and his wife to parallel that with his own personal faith.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story “Young Goodman Brown” the allegory Goodman Brown, a man devoted to his faith in our Father the Lord, after making a hard decision that would follow him for the rest of his life ends up trying to make peace with the fact that he cannot take away the decision but can try to not make the matter worse. When Goodman Brown discovers the “depths of darkness” he is in he begins to have a loss of faith. The line for the story “’My Faith gone!’ cried he, after one stupefied moment. ‘There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil! for to thee as this world given.’” represents the fact that it appears that Goodman Brown lost his faith. That line also shows how he wished for the devil’s worship to come and retrieve him.

Notably Faith, the protagonist’s wife, plays a huge role as an allegory and a symbol throughout Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown.” In this story Faith’s name plays as an allegory. At first this could easily be missed because it sounds like a common name for a woman, but once the readers get further into the story they realize that her name plays an enormous role in the story’s plot. Faith’s name symbolizes Brown’s faith in God. In the story when Brown meets the man in the forest the man says, “You are late Goodman Brown,” and Brown replies, “Faith kept me back awhile” (Hawthorne 330). At this point of the story the audience knows for

“Young Goodman Brown” is set right after the Salem Witch Trials and much of the story is based on the ideology of that era. Faith is clearly meant to represent Goodman Brown’s tether to Puritanism. Hawthorne gives us a flashing sign for this in only the second sentence “And Faith, as the wife was aptly named...” (315). This quote is fairly self-explanatory, but it is a bold message to pay attention to the character Faith and how she related to faith. Another description of the role of Faith, in Mr. Brown’s life, is in the form of the subtle wording he uses when talking to the devil. “ ‘Faith kept me back a while,’replied the young man,” (316) This quote may seem to be referring to Faith the character keeping him back a while, but with deeper inspection one can conclude that it references faith, as in his religion, kept him away from the sinful journey on which he is currently embarking. Another little key in the story is how Mr. Brown addresses his wife. “My love and my Faith,” (315). The faith in question is not the wife’s name, but instead he is calling his wife his faith or the holy that he believes in. The last quote that is needed to secure this symbolism is found as the devil is trying to seduce Goodman Brown to follow him further using the woman that taught him religion as incentive. “What if a wretched old woman does choose to go to the devil

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.”

It is hard to read beyond the third paragraph of “Young Goodman Brown” without finding allegory and symbolism. The opening seems realistic--Goodman Brown, a young Puritan, leaves his home in colonial Salem to take an overnight trip-- but his wife's name, “Faith,” immediately suggests a symbolic reading. Before long, Brown’s walk into the dream-like forest seems like an allegorical trip into evil. The idea that Hawthorne shows by this trip is that people are attracted to sin through temptation which leads them towards a path of isolation and distrust. He develops this thought in the allegory and in many symbols, particularly the staff, the pink ribbon, and Faith.

First, I will elaborate on the lies Faith and Brown had for each other, which builds up deception and their lack of faith in their relationship. When Brown is leaving Faith to meet with the Devil, Faith pleads but finally relents and states, “Then God bless you...and may you find all well when you come back” (Hawthorne, 387). Her gesture is sincere because she wishes him good luck and hopes that no harm comes his way. She even trusts Brown enough to go on a journey he did not further detail. However, Faith is contradicting with both words and appearance. Her strange word choice of

Throughout short stories, readers’ sometimes overlook what the story is really trying to inform the audience. They are in a hurry and overlook important aspects of imagery, foreshadowing, and symbolism. In “Young Goodman Brown”, symbolism is an important aspect and Hawthorne gives the reader a suspense with Satan and the sinful nature of the world. Mr. Brown is known as the man who is a devoted Christian and this characteristic gives a perspective on how the story perpetuates. When there is a desire in faith, there is a desire in temptation, which Goodman Brown succumbs into the tested evil of temptation. Hawthorne uses the symbols of the staff, Faith, and the forest to convey his theme of corruption that results in the weakening of faith.

Nathaniel Hawthorne made seems to illustrate the prices we pay for deserting or abandoning our faith in this eery story. Here is a young man who has just found out that what you see is not always what you get. Why did Goodman Brown leave his wife, Faith, to begin with? I believe that his wife may have simply been a manifestation of the actual term for faithfulness in God. It is difficult to judge Goodman Brown as having any good intentions with his journey in the woods, after all, he left his wife alone and afraid with every intention of meeting a dark stranger for a reason unknown to the reader. One theory I have is that Young Goodman Brown experienced a form of limbo where he was stuck between his earthly life and heaven. It’s quite obvious

While Faith may be a largely moral person, by living in a town in which every town member was shown succumbing to the lures of the devil, Faith is influenced by society to conform. Thus when “something fluttered lightly down through the air, and… the young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon,” Goodman Brown, as well as the reader, becomes aware of Faith’s inner darkness (Hawthorne, 9). Moreover, when Goodman Brown sees Faith being inducted into the devil’s cult with him, Goodman Brown tries to make Faith remain pious and moral when he exclaims “Faith! Faith! Look up to Heaven, and resist the Wicked One!” (Hawthorne, 11). While there is ambiguity following this exclamation pertaining to whether or not Faith did, in fact, resist the temptation of the devil, Faith’s arrival at the devil’s cult in itself exposes that “evil is the nature of mankind” (Hawthorne, 11). However, at the end of Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown, Faith reverts back to being the good, moral and pious wife, as she never abandons her religion and all the while takes care of her husband who has transformed from loving to grumpy due to his experience with the devil. By characterizing Faith as the pure and pious wife of Goodman Brown, Hawthorne successfully demonstrates how even the most moral person can give into the temptations of

Written in 1835, the story “Young Goodman Brown,” is an interesting tale that illustrates the protagonist, Goodman Brown, losing his faith. The story starts off with Mr. Brown telling his wife, Faith, the he is going to venture off the forest for an errand. Despite the protestations from his wife, he trek out into the forest and encounter an old man. This old man starts leading Mr. Brown into a witches sabbath and along the way he sees many people from his town who he thought was pure and innocence. Due to this, Goodman Brown’s faith starts to deteriorate, but what really set him off is when he saw his wife, Faith, succumb to the devil. Although on the surface level, this story seems to be about a man losing his faith due to the evilness around

     The word faith throughout the story is a play on words. The first use of the word faith is the name of Goodman Brown?s wife. The second use of the word faith describes Goodman Brown?s belief, trust and