Symbols In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

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.

This contrast is easily revealed in the following sentence: "the wind tolled like a distant church-bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar around the traveler, as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn" (Hawthorne 1204). Whereas the wind affectionately "plays" with Faith's pink ribbons, it noisily taunts Young Goodman Brown. Also, as Nina Baym suggests, both the wind and the pink ribbons may, in fact, provide "concrete symbols that link the saving power of the woman with her body and through her body to Nature" (138). Hawthorne visually enhances the ambiguity surrounding Faith's dual role in nature through his repetitive and symbolic use of the pink ribbons. There is deceit and uncertainty in the very color pink that exists somewhere between the extremes of white, representing grace and purity, and red, symbolizing fiery passion and sin. However, Young Goodman Brown, in his naïve belief of moral absolutes, is unable to decide upon the essentially complex double meaning that may be behind the very being of Faith's character. As a result, he sees Faith gracefully adorned with her pink ribbons, as the essence of angelic purity.

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.

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 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 Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" the use of symbols contributes to the development of the story's plot. Symbolism is used as a means to uncover the truth about the characters. The author, in an attempt to manifest the moral aspects of his society, uses many kinds of symbols to support his points.

Faith is whom Goodman Brown has been three months married with and loves and cherishes dearly. He tells her in the beginning that he is going on a journey unknown to her, and tries to convince her husband in not leaving but is unsuccessful. When he departs he leaves his wife behind the only person who can guide him in choosing the right path. (Pg.1) "So they parted; and the young man pursued his way until, being about to turn the corner by the meeting-house, he looked back and saw the head of Faith still peeping after him with a melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons." The wife represents innocence when Hawthorne describes her through the pink ribbons. Goodman Brown makes several stops during the path and looks back on what he is doing, but a force pushes him away from the light and draws him into the avoidable darkness.

Symbolism is a literary technique that is used to clarify the author's intent. Sometimes it is used to great effect, while other times it only seems to muddle the meaning of a passage. In "Young Goodman Brown," Nathaniel Hawthorne uses objects and people as symbols to allegorically reveal his message to the reader.

Hawthorne relates his own experience to share the life of Brown, and he also uses internal conflict to explore Young Goodman Brown’s identity crisis. In the beginning there was a conflict between the husband and wife. There is a slight conflict between the husband and wife as Faith fears danger and does not want Young Goodman Brown to leave her during the night, and this causes the distance between them. It then escalates into a conflict between the good and evil in the world when Young Goodman Brown meets the devil in the forest.

My mind was slightly confused when I first read this story but when I carefully analyzed it, it came to be that there was a psychological outlook to this. The outlook comes to life when Brown opens to accept the reality that that he seems to suppress. What reality is this you might ask yourself. As not human beings, we have occasionally used poor judgement on problems in our everyday lives, but what is the most critical is how we deal with these experiences that will become permanently stable in our minds. I believe that this is the major cause and sorrow for Brown. When people look at his society and the beliefs of the townspeople, who can understand how Brown’s duties can be very oppressive. It was so overbearing that it caused him to have hallucinations about the welfare of his life.

Color is a recurring symbol used throughout literature, such as in the short story Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Brown appears to be just a normal, common last name, but the mixture of colors required to achieve this hue is also symbolic of two or more conflicting emotions. The pink ribbons, while at first glance seems to indicate femininity, also is a blend of the passionate associations of red and the purity of white. Oftentimes, colors are overlooked and perceived as nothing more than the reflection of particles of light. However, the colors frequently contain a deeper meaning. Hawthorne recognizes the importance of this in his novel, The Scarlet Letter. Just how the ribbons and last name signify a combination of two ideas, the use of

Decisions are what separate one’s life from another life. In this case, metaphors have different meanings to them, which can make them have different interpretations. Therefore, one has to make a decision on how they interpret a metaphor. This is proven to be true in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story, Young Goodman Brown. It is very crucial to look for metaphors as an individual reads. It helps foreshadow what is going to occur in the story. In addition, looking deeper into the meaning behind metaphors may give the reader a better understanding. Using metaphors may give the story much deeper meaning than just the text itself. Using the story Young Goodman Brown, the metaphors that Hawthorne used that enhances the story is the fire in Salem, names that are involved within the story, and the darkness that surrounds the character. During the time of interpreting metaphors, one will also see how Brown will be faced with several challenges that he is going to encounter. Also, Brown will be faced with the temptation in everything he will do. Contributing to this is using the five senses: smell, taste, feel, see and hear that actually deals with metaphors as well.

“Young Goodman Brown” has many symbols that represent something meaningful in the story. Faith’s pink ribbons that she wears on her cap represents her purity. The pink color of the ribbons corresponds to joy and innocence. Faith’s happiness is shown when Hawthorne mentions “thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap, while she called to Goodman Brown”(304). She is described as a innocent, girly, and cheerful lady. Mr Brown noticed Faith’s head with its pink ribbons moving back and forth. She was happy to see him (315). The character Faith symbolizes having faith in Christianity. Mr. Brown

     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.