The Young Goodman Brown - Why?
The Young Goodman Brown Why does YGB go into the forest--and tonight of all nights? If you look carefully at the first paragraph for hints, all the information you get is that he is "but three months married" and that he is tempted to get into heaven by hanging on to Faith's skirts. She too has been having troubling dreams, and is afraid to be without him at night. What can we make of these few hints?
We know that Brown is "young" and probably naive. So, could this be a scenario? He has been married long enough--but not too long--to understand fully that the sexual passion is a strong one--strong even for his "pure" wife; he also must realize that all people in the community, including those most respected in spiritual circles, have secret sexual lives, even as he has. (I know--most of us have this revelation much younger--say at twelve when we realize that even "THEY do it"--but Brown IS "young.") Now he knows. The urges of the body, which have been defined as carnal and sinful, are powerful and attractive, not only for him but for Faith and for all the folks in his community, including his minister and father (of course, how else could he have been born! One wonders if his mother is in this scenario, but she isn't explicitly. Perhaps Brown is still a bit naive). Maybe THIS is what they mean by "original sin."
Oh well, being a sinner he might as well go check out the action in the forest (it's a lost cause anyhow), but Faith, who must surely be pure and innocent, should stay at home so he can grab her skirts and go to heaven. No wonder he enacts the scenario, whether dream or not, that occurs. He must come to understand that the community is, as his preacher always said, guilty of the same sins he recognizes in himself, and, as the devil says, that this is one communal bond. It's called growing up and recognizing the flawed essence of human nature, an experience which must be traversed, leaving one sadder but wiser. But no, not our goodman. He "flunks the exam"; although sadder, he is a case of arrested development, thinking that by saying "no" at the last minute he can avoid the inevitable stain of the human condition. By avoiding the stain he in fact sins in a greater way, in Hawthornian terms, for he breaks the essential tie to the human community.
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