"Young Goodman Brown" Analysis

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,” 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

In Young Goodman Brown one of the most important symbolisms is Faith, Brown’s wife, Faith represents he’s actual faith in god. When Goodman Brown was heading into the forest, he still has her, but as the story unravels it becomes clearer that Faith is not who she seems. Hawthorne makes Faith seem young and innocent when he describes her: "And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap". Brown knew her as someone who he could trust and care for, just like his actual faith in god. As the story goes on, Brown heads into the forest,

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.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" is full of symbolism throughout the story. Perhaps the most interesting examples of symbolism include the title character, Young Goodman Brown, as well as his wife, Faith, and the woods that Young Goodman Brown enters on his journey. Included are many allusions to Christianity and also to evil and sin. These references are expressed mainly through characters and settings in the story.

As Brown is witnessing the evils that surround him, he tries to save himself and prays. As he is praying he begins to hear voices from the sky, as is they were coming from religious godly figures, such as his wife Faith. He then sees the pink ribbon that she wears in her hair on the ground. This causes Brown a great deal of despair because it could mean that Faith is also going into the forest to practice evil things.

The 1st symbol in the story is the Pink Ribbon. The Pink Ribbon came throughout meeting Goodman Browns wife, Faith. “Then god bless you! Said Faith, with the Pink Ribbons and may you find well when you come back. “Faith is a good person such as Goodman Brown. Pink Ribbons can symbolize peace and love.

Young Goodman Brown then finds himself alone in the forest, wondering whether he has awakened from a dream or if he really did attend the witches’ sabbath. Brown chooses to believe that his dream is true, and that everyone around him is involved in witchcraft. “The next morning, young Goodman Brown came slowly into the street of Salem village staring around him like a bewildered man.” (Paragraph 70) Because of this, Brown spends the remainder of his life being, "A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man” (Paragraph 75). Goodman Brown now looks for the devil behind every bush and in the hearts of all those around him, never recognizing that his own soul is now hopelessly corrupt and blind to the light and goodness of God. The forest, the devil and his staff, and Faith and her pink ribbons are the main points to prove young Goodman Brown of a story full of symbolism. There is no doubt that the traveler meeting Brown is the devil and the devils staff is clearly the symbol of a serpent. Faith is both Brown’s wife and religion. The pink ribbons discussed are symbolized as innocence because his faith in God is the right thing to do. Unlike following the devil, which led Brown to sin and guilt. “Ha! ha! ha!” roared Goodman Brown, when the wind laughed at him. “Let us hear which will laugh loudest! Think not to frighten me

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.

A central theme in Hawthorne's novel is that everyone is corruptible, and many of the things like the pink ribbon that once represented goodness to Young Goodman Brown were illusory. The next clue in the decryption of these ribbons comes when the devil is trying to convince Mr. Brown to come to the ceremony and he sees something fall from the sky. “The young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon. ‘My Faith is gone!’ cried he, after one stupefied moment,” (320). This perfectly signifies how Goodman Brown interprets the loss of the ribbons as the same as the loss of his virtue. Goodman Brown loses his idealistic Faith when he becomes certain she has been tempted by the devil. The falling of the ribbon from the sky is a symbol of the falling of Lucifer from heaven or Adam and Eve’s fall from Eden. The once representation of purity, Faith, falls from grace in Goodman Brown’s eyes similarly to how Lucifer the angel did when he challenged God. The final quote needed to cement the pink ribbons as symbolism in the chronology of the story is found on the last page. “Turning the corner by the meeting-house, he spied the head of Faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at sight of him”(323). This final mention of this pink ribbon gives some insight into the resolution of this ambiguous

Faith is all Goodman Brown has known. He had even married a Faith. The double meaning of Faith within this story shows major Irony for us as the readers. Brown marrying a Faith was almost shown as he made the biggest devotion towards God. The main character has put every ounce of Faith he has into his life that would completely give himself to God forever. This is

Nathaniel Hawthorne also uses different objects in the story as symbols. One of these is the staff of the devil : "But the only thing about him, that could be fixed upon as remarkable, was his staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake . . ." (185). This symbol shows the reader the evil that is involved with the devil character because the serpent is an archetype of the devil, or some sort of evil, which is prominent in many different cultures. Another object Hawthorne uses as a recurring symbol is the pink ribbon. The pink ribbon symbolizes the purity and innocence involved with Faith. "And Faith . . . thrust her own pretty had into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons in her cap," is a great example of how Hawthorne correlates Faith with the pink ribbons of innocence (184). The pink ribbons are mentioned later on in the story as they fall from the sky: "But something fluttered lightly down through the air, and caught on the branch of a tree. The young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon." (189). This symbolizes Brown's loss of his Faith, referring to both his wife and his faith in mankind, as she hovers over toward the devil's gathering.

The way Hawthorne portrays Brown’s wife, Faith, is one of the most unique and powerful pieces of the story. It shows how a man can think completely differently and lose his faith due to traumatizing events. The way Young Goodman Brown represents the everyman is something very unique and enjoyable, as it takes the reader and puts them right into the main character’s shoes. Brown faces a lot of adversity that most people will go through one way or another, and Brown in this story can represent any given person during at least one point in their life. True, it may be hard to understand how one man could represent all of humanity, but Hawthorne did an excellent job at getting as close as possible. Young Goodman Brown may not be who someone identifies with when a crisis occurs, but his character truly shows how big of an impact an extreme incident can be on any given person, and completely changing their way of going about

     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.

Young Goodman Brown was an innocent, corruptly, and doubtful man. At first, he only thought there was goodness inside of his father and grandfather, until the old man tells Goodman Brown that he knew both of them. All the people that he thought were pure, happened to be connected with the devil at one point. Once he found out about everybody that the old man knew, Goodman Brown questioned his beliefs about everything and he was never the same. When Goodman Brown went to the forest, it completely changed his faith and well- being.