Young Goodman Brown Analysis

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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

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.

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   Faith is believing what you can’t see or touch. Faith is knowing something especially when there is no proof to back it up. “Young Goodman Brown” is a story about a man who leaves his wife, Faith, home alone for a night while he journeys with the devil down the road of temptation. During the course of his journey, the man sees many people who seem out of place, including his wife. When he returns home to Salem, he is a changed man. In this story, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbolism and characterization in order to imply that when an individual loses faith in the goodness of mankind, that individual may conclude that mankind (including friends and family) has given in

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In the short story “Young Goodman Brown,” the author Nathaniel Hawthorne shows the fragility of humans when it comes to their morality. Goodman Brown goes on a journey through the forest with the devil to watch the witches’ ritual and observes the evil in the Puritan society. He loses his faith as he sees the people he respects the most participating in the sinful ritual. Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes setting, and symbolism in his short story “Young Goodman Brown,” to show how a person’s perspective can change by showing the hypocritical nature of the Puritan society

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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.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," Hawthorne introduces Goodman Brown, who doubts himself and reiterates his false confidence to himself repeatedly. His struggle between the evil temptations, the devil, and the proper church abiding life, is a struggle he does not think he can handle. This story is about a man who challenges his faith in himself and in the community in which he resides. Goodman Brown must venture on a journey into the local forest, refuse the temptations of the devil, and return to the village before the sunrise.

Corruptibility that is ever so present in society creates dual images of what is morally right and morally wrong. The theme of good and evil often coexist emerges throughout Hawthorne's short story Young Goodman Brown through the setting of time and place, the title and subject matter, and the use of symbolism. Young Goodman goes out to the woods late one night to meet someone who is a duel image of himself though older and is presumably the devil. The man then sets about persuading him to join him further about the path down the woods to lead him to communion with people evidently damned. Goodman Brown shows very vexing hesitation upon going and shows great strength in resisting, when his mind is set to resolve he is lured to by the sight

Taking one last look back at his worried Faith before he sets for his “present evil purpose” in the woods, Goodman Brown thinks to himself “Poor little Faith…what a wretch am I, to leave her on such an errand. Later on, he adds “’twould kill her to think [of the evil plans prepared for tonight]” (Hawthorne 262). Afterwards, when he meets Satan along the path of sin, Brown explains to him that “Faith kept me back awhile” (Hawthorne 262), revealing that he knows continuing down that road is wrong. However, he decides to follow the route of sin anyway. Thomas F. Walsh, Jr. perfectly describes Goodman Brown’s situation in his essay “The Bedeviling of Young Goodman Brown” when he writes that “He [Goodman Brown] is conscious of the dangers of the mission, but is impelled onward by the thoughts of evil which hold him fascinated until it is too late to turn back to his wife and so to faith” (238).

Allegorical and Psychoanalytic Analysis of “Young Goodman Brown” “Young Goodman Brown,” a short story written by author Nathaniel Hawthorne, focuses on the theme of good versus evil and man versus self as it follows protagonist Goodman Brown down his spiritual path. In his story, Hawthorne used Goodman Brown’s choice to go “toward the wrong action,” which ultimately results in the loss of Goodman Brown’s spiritual faith, to “prefigure any human wrongdoing,” especially that of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Timmerman, 2013, p. 5). Additionally, Goodman Brown’s decision to follow the temptations of the Devil and go against his faith shows the conscious and subconscious battle between man’s guilt-ridden desires and moral correctness. In his

In "Young Goodman Brown," Hawthorne tells the story of one man’s loss of faith in the human race. As Goodman Brown travels into the woods one night, he is sees the innermost secrets and desires of the people he once placed upon a pedestal. He sees that humans are evil by nature, and this causes him to lose faith in his fellow man. By viewing the story as an allegory, the journey into the woods is associated with the Puritan concept of justification. The Puritans viewed justification, or the means by which one receives the salvation of Christ, as a psychological journey into the "hell (or evil) of the self" (Soler). Goodman Brown fails to complete his process of individuation because

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