Young Goodman Brown: Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Young Goodman Brown,” was written in year of 1835 by Nathaniel Hawthorne, who is identified for being one of literature’s most fascinating interpreters of seventeenth-century Puritan culture. A literary device is a method that creates a definite influence in writing. Literary devices are found all throughout Young Goodman Brown, such as theme, motif, and symbol. There are many different themes shown throughout the story of Young Goodman Brown. From the moment he enters the enigmatic forest, Young Goodman Brown expresses his fear of being there, and to him it is a place where nothing upright is probable.

Young Goodman Brown, similar to other Puritans, relates the forest with wild Indians and thinks he sees them hiding behind the trees. Young Goodman Brown has strong faith that evil could definitely exist in the woods. “Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness” (Hurley 1). Young Goodman Brown ultimately sees evil in himself, just as he had predicted. He believes of it as a matter of corruption that is not the tradition of his family and friends. They would certainly not have strolled in the forest by choice, and Young Goodman Brown is distraught when evil insists otherwise.

He is humiliated to be seen walking in the woods and hides when the minister and Deacon pass by. The woods are considered evil, scary, and gloomy, and Young Goodman Brown is at ease in the woods when he has given in to the devil. One of the motifs in the story of Young Goodman Brown is female purity. When Young Goodman Brown leaves Faith at the opening of the story, he promises that after this evening of devilish activities, he will grasp onto her skirts and soar to paradise.

From the time and setting of this story, the idea was that a man’s wife or mother will convert him and prepare the work of true spiritual faith for the entire family was a popular one. Young Goodman Brown adheres to the impression of Faith’s purity during the course of his trials in the woods, blasphemy that as long as Faith rests holy, he can find it in himself to fight the devil. When Young Goodman Brown discovers that Faith is present at the service, it alters every one of his thoughts about what is moral or immoral in the universe, losing his power and capability to fight (Baym 1).

Female purity was an influential idea in Puritan New England, and men trusted on women’s faith to sustain on their own. When Faith’s purity is demolished in the eyes of Goodman Brown, he fails to fight evil and use his faith. One of the main symbols in this story is the pink ribbons that Faith places in her cap that signifies her purity. The color pink is linked with virtue, and ribbons are known as a modest and innocent embellishment. Hawthorne references Faith’s pink ribbons numerous times at the opening of the story, instilling her personality with youth and cheerfulness (Xian-Chun 2).

He reestablishes the ribbons when Young Goodman Brown is in the woods, contemplating with his uncertainties about the morals of people he is acquainted with. When the pink ribbon flies downward from the clouds, Young Goodman Brown distinguishes it as a symbol that Faith has absolutely dropped into the territory of evil; she has no mark of her purity or innocence (Xian-Chun 1). The color white also represents the idea of goodness and purity, while red represents twistedness and tainted ideas.

In the conclusion of the story, Faith meets Young Goodman Brown as he proceeds from the woods; she is wearing her pink ribbons yet again, signifying her return to the image of innocence she displayed at the opening of the story and casting away the uncertainties on the truth of Young Goodman Brown’s ventures (Xian-Chun 1). Williamson begins by stating, “Hawthorne’s definition of a good author, he advises that Hawthorne deemed the best writers as those with a little devil in them” (Williamson 1).

Williamson proposes that in “Young Goodman Brown” there is a joining among the novelist and the evil spirit and the novelist/narrator is truly a follower of the evil spirit festivity (Williamson 1). He also composes that Brown really meets with the three evil spirits: the old man, Goody Cloyse, and the narrator. The narrator is the evil spirit in the story that he has the capability to make Brown and the person who reads identify evil abilities of the other characters (Williamson 1). Walter Shear shares that as Young Goodman Brown leaves Faith, he becomes an individual psychologically.

His retreat from his wife is not merely a representative loss of faith, but it is also his leaving behind conservative faith. In the woods, Brown’s belief is lacking; therefore the familiar woods are frightening (Shear 1). He must struggle with the individuals in the woods in demand to keep his ethics and beliefs. It is him contrary to humanity and he is deceived by that very civilization. At the end, Young Goodman Brown departs the fantasy and proceeds to usual culture (Shear 1). He is more conscious of himself and of his connection with other participants of the culture. Shear states that Brown exemplifies the unbalanced Puritanism s it declines in its spiritual belief and becomes slightly deceitful. Brown’s disgust of his wife and community signifies his own necessity to psychologically limit his motives for leading in the forest (Shear 1). Young Goodman Brown is entirely devastated and overwhelmed when he wakes from his nightmare. As he walked the streets of Salem he was not capable to isolate his vision from actuality. He is incapable to handle the findings that the possible for wicked exist in everyone. The rest of his lifetime is demolished because of his helplessness to express this reality and be aware of it.

The vision, has established the seed of uncertainty in Young Goodman Brown’s mind, which subsequently takes him off from his related gentleman and leaves him unaccompanied and unhappy. The reality is that Young Goodman Brown loathes these individuals because he understands that identical traits in himself. Like the individuals in his vision, he questions his personal belief. However, he plants his personal worries onto those nearby him. The vision is a demonstration of all of the anxieties he has about himself and the selections he has made throughout his lifetime.

He is too full of pride to recognize his personal mistakes. His time finishes unaccompanied and depressed because he was not once capable to gaze at himself and understand that what he understood were everyone else’s mistakes were his as well. He is entirely secluded from his culture. The literary devices deployed by Hawthorne throughout “Young Goodman Brown,” give the piece an effectiveness and life that it would not have otherwise. The devices of theme, motif, and symbolism are heavily used and extremely effective throughout the entire piece, making it understandable, relatable, and enjoyable for the reader.

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Plot Summary: Young Goodman Brown

The story begins when the young Goodman Brown is saying goodbye to his wife, Faith. She asks him to stay with her, saying that she feels scared when she is alone. Goodman Brown tells her that he must travel for one night and reminds her to say her prayers and go to bed early so she will safe. Goodman Brown walks on a road through a forest. He looks around, afraid of what might be behind each tree, thinking that there might be Indians or the devil there. He soon comes upon a man in the road who greets Goodman Brown.

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The man is dressed in regular clothing and looks normal except for a walking stick with a serpent carved that he carried. Goodman Brown and this mysterious figure go into the dark forest, the man offers Goodman Brown the staff, he says that it might help him walk faster, but Goodman Brown refuses. He says that he came to their meeting because he promised to do, but does not wish to touch the staff and wants to return to the village. Goodman Brown tells to him that he feels ashamed to socialize with him because he and his family members is Christian and good people.

The man replies that he knew Goodman Brown’s family and other members of churches, and even the governor of the state. The purpose of their journey is to join in a ritual. Goodman Brown expresses reluctance, not only once but several times. He refuses because he says that he wants to return to his house for Faith. At that moment, there is a woman come and Goodman Brown knew that she is Goody Cloyse, who he knows to be a pious, respected woman from the village. He hides, ashamed to be seen with the man. She identifies him as the devil and reveals herself to be a witch, on her way to the devil’s evil forest ceremony.

The man gives Goodman Brown his staff then the man tells him that he can use it for transport to the ceremony if he changes his mind. Then he hears the voices of the minister of the church and Deacon Gookin, they are also on their way to the ceremony. Goodman Brown swears that even though everyone else in the world has gone to the devil, for Faith’s sake he will stay true to God. And, he hears voices coming from the ceremony and thinks he recognizes Faith’s voice. He screams her name, and a pink ribbon from her cap flutters down from the sky.

After he knew that Faith has turned to devil and there is no good in the world, Goodman Brown gets the staff, which brings him quickly through the forest to the ceremony. When he arrived at the ceremony, he looks around to the forest, the trees are on fire, he sees his father, his mother, the minister, Deacon Gookin, Goody Cloyse and Martha Carrier. He and Faith approach the altar and they are to be anointed in blood to seal their alliance with wickedness. He tells Faith to look up to heaven and resist the devil, but suddenly he finds himself alone in the forest. The next morning Goodman Brown returns to Salem Village.

Everyone that he passes is seems evil to him. He sees the minister and he refuses to accept the blessing from the minister who blessed him. He hears Deacon Gookin praying and he calls him as a witch. He sees Goody Cloyse quizzing a young girl on Bible verses and snatches the girl away. He sees Faith at his house and refuses to greet her. It’s unclear whether the meeting in the forest was a dream or not. But, Goodman Brown is changed. Now, He can’t believe the words of the minister, doesn’t trust anyone in his village, and doesn’t fully love his wife as before. He lives in the rest of his life with gloom and fear.

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Young Goodman Brown and Loss of Innosence Analysis

The gloom Young Goodman Brown is feeling from the truth he discovers during the night is completely justified. How could it not be after such a traumatic experience? His entire image of the world around him was shattered. The people he new and looked up to, were not what he spent his life believing them to be. There are many passages by Young Goodman Brown that portray these thoughts, feeling, loss of innocence, and changes to his perception in the short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. What immediately stood out to me was the sweet exchange of words Goodman and Faith had, at the train station before his departure.

Faith had bad dreams and negative thoughts about Goodman’s trip and does not want him to leave. Goodman replies, “My love and my Faith, of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee. ” This line was the best. I have never heard a better way to tell a woman that I can not spend time with her. This line will be used by me at some time in my life. I wonder how much better Goodman’s life would have been if he would have listened to faith. Goodman regarded Faith as his anchor to everything that is right in the world.

Faith, with her pink ribbons, is what could right any of the wrongs that might happen to him on his trip. “After this one night I’ll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven,” he tells himself in the fashion of a silent prayer, pleading to make it through the night. I see this concept, of using Faith as a prayer, when he meditates on the phrase, “what calm sleep would be his that very night, which was to have been spent so wickedly, but so purely and sweetly now, in the arms of Faith! Amidst these pleasant and praiseworthy meditations. ” It seemed as if everyone from the village had a relationship with the devil.

“I helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through the streets of Salem: and it was I that brought your father a pitch pin knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set fire to an Indian village, in King Philip’s war,” said the devil. One of the first moments of truth occurred when Goodman witnessed Goody Cloyse speaking to the devil. Hawthorne portrays Goodman’s shock by having him repeat the phrase, “That old woman taught me my catechism. ” Once you start on the road of behavior that makes you lose your innocence, the easier it becomes to travel down that path.

The devil said, trying to comfort Goodman, “You will think better of this by and by. ” The moment the Devil plucked the maple branch and it withered was a metaphor of how evil corrupts the innocent and a representation of what was in store for Goodman’s life after that night. Goodman was so shocked that the very leaders of his faith, the Deacon, would venture out into the night to meet the man with the snake cane. Then Goodman heard the cry of grief and held the pink ribbon in his hand crying out, “my Faith is gone,” was the end of his trying to withstand the devil.

He gave up stating, “there is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. ” In this moment of despair he calls out to the devil stating, “Come, devil; for to thee is the world given. ” When he felt he lost is anchor (Faith) to everything that was Holy and pure to him he gave up. In Goodman’s mind he had no other choice to follow the Devil and after being apart of that ritual of initiation and the devil’s sermon, there was no coming back for him. Young Goodman Brown will forever be gloomy and withdrawn.

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Literary Criticism Technique In “Young Goodman Brown”

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” is a short story in which the author attempts to convey several different messages or themes throughout the literary piece. Themes in literary works can sometimes be better understood by analyzing the piece with a specific literary criticism technique. A few of these literary criticism techniques include Marxist, Formalism, and […]

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Theme of “Young Goodman Brown”

Theme of “Young Goodman Brown” “Young Goodman Brown” was written by Nathaniel Hawthorn, one of the most talented American novelists and storytellers of the Romantic Age. He was affected deeply by Puritanism and Mysticism so that he formed a suspicious attitude towards the world, just like in “Young Goodman Brown”. This story is really short […]

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Young Goodman Brown Analysis

The gloom Young Goodman Brown is feeling from the truth he discovers during the night is completely justified. How could it not be after such a traumatic experience? His entire image of the world around him was shattered. The people he new and looked up to, were not what he spent his life believing them […]

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