goodman brown Essay

Thesis: Goodman Brown’s state of mind between good and evil could have been caused by a combination of Puritanism obsession with the devil, its resemblance, and other prejudices such as ergot poisoning.

In “Young Goodman Brown”, after his journey into the forest, Brown changes his entire outlook on life. He has lost his faith and has taken on a life of darkness and unrest because he is never sure whether the events of what happened in the forest were reality or imagined. From that point on he is never at peace because he is always expecting evil. And he is then depicted as a man who never has happiness with his beloved “Faith”, that is his wife and his actual faith in God, or in any other thing in his life. Brown becomes a victim to the nature of evil and the effects that it can play on the

"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.

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.

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

This madness that Young Goodman Brown experiences escalates further more the psychological struggle he is having. What he learns in this forest changes him so much that he cannot look at anything without judging it in the manner of his experience. As Walter Shear puts it, "he underestimates the power of time, failing to see the degree to which he has…made himself a particular kind of individual, (and) ultimately the prisoner of his own psychological prisoner" (Shear, 545). Young Goodman Brown came into the journey somewhat aware of what he would see in terms of the presence of evil but did not believe that one night of this evil could change his life forever. Due to the strict Puritan society he was used to, Young Goodman Brown underestimated the power that this journey would hold and therefore he becomes a

     The main focus of the story “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is the triumph of evil over good. A supposedly good man is tempted by evil and allows himself to be converted into a man of evil. This is much like the situation that arises in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, where two people are tempted to sin and give in thus submitting themselves to the power of the devil. In this novel, the area where the devil resides is strictly parallel to that in “Young Goodman Brown”.

     After studying the short stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” and Willa Cather’s “Paul’s Case”, I began to see many similarities within the two stories. Both of the main characters in each story have characteristics that could be looked at as being alike, but after analyzing each character I started to find that although alike in some aspects, these two characters are very different from one another. At first I noticed that both Goodman Brown and Paul are starved for attention, but in different ways. Next, I see that each character has issues with their past and are both trying desperately to overcome them. Finally, I found that each character’s main goal in

This is made more evident at the end of the story by the way Goodman Brown avoids, doubts, and distrusts his neighbors (455). Goodman Brown’s actions at the end of the story were the opposite of any religious teachings when he forsakes his faith after such a small and controversial event.

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.

Young Goodman Brown" tells the tale of a young Puritan man drawn into a covenant with the Devil. Brown's illusions about the goodness of his society are crushed when he discovers that many of his fellow townspeople, including religious leaders and his wife, are attending a Black Mass. At the end of the story, it is not clear whether Brown's experience was nightmare or reality, but the results are nonetheless the same. Brown is unable to forgive the possibility of evil in his loved ones and as a result spends the rest of his life in desperate loneliness and gloom.

deeper meanings than what the reader can see on the surface. The allegorical meaning is the writer’s real purpose in writing the narrative so that a lesson can be found when reading below the surface. “Young Goodman Brown”, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a perfect example of an allegorical story and is filled with many symbolic elements.

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.

In the short story “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, there is a certain uncertainty, deviousness, and a riddle of wrongdoing living within the citizens of Salem. Young Goodman Brown, a very naive person, is ruined when he realizes the hypocrisy of his religion as he witnesses the truth in the middle of Salem woods. His own people worshipping a being that is not God! Ironically, when Brown confronts his fellow townspeople, he is angered by their responses; they seem to have no recollection of what occurred in the woods. Thus leaving him in a state of insanity, where all Brown senses around him are lies. The natural impulse to keep secrets and lies can harm others. This is embodied in Young Goodman Brown, who goes from a typical puritan to an unkind, judgmental, depressed man.

“Young Goodman Brown” has a theme of Puritan nature as well. People often dwell on life’s uncertainties so much that they loose the ability to enjoy life. Goodman Brown had a curiosity that made him travel into the wicked