Although this short story -- one of the greatest in American Literature -- was published almost a century before Sigmund Freud, a renowned psychologist and psychoanalyst, published his works, Young Goodman Brown almost explicitly illustrates how Freudian psychology works. A lot of aspects of psychology are depicted in this short story.
One of the questions that one might ask is whether the experience of Goodman Brown was merely a dream or a reality. I would say that that is only a dream, based on the clues found in the text. At the first part, the scene when the couple parted, Goodman Brown said, “…she talks of dreams, too…” This means that he has been experiencing dreams that bother him. And the narrative is but one of those. It tells us how powerful dreams are, or more specifically, how powerful our unconscious and subconscious minds are. The unconscious mind is where bad memories are repressed, while the conscious mind is where good experiences and memories are expressed. The subconscious mind links the two. His subconscious mind had been so powerful that it even overcame the conscious mind, and it intruded on Goodman Brown’s conscious mind and therefore affecting his own living and his persona (one’s public self).
Another idea that is quite obvious using the psychological approach is the conflict between the id and the superego, and how the ego finally decided on the problem. The id is the part of the mind attached to the world. It is therefore worldly desires like material things and sex. The strange man represents the id in the story. He convinces Goodman Brown to go to the path of evil, just as the id would convince him. I believe that the path of evil is worldly. Most would say that it is easier or enjoyable to ...
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...sure. I really think that Brown has had a psychological disorder. The vast majority of disorders result from a combination of constitutional and environmental factors. The experience had been a trauma to him.
Goodman Brown is clearly undergoing several struggles involving sex, religion, demons, and his own shadow, his unconscious id and superego, and his purely conscious ego. It is about how a man’s life, faith, and beliefs were shaken by a night’s dream, whether this has been a reality or an illusion. The story proves the power of the mind. It talks about how the mind governed the man’s actions. The piece was great because it allows us, readers, to have a different interpretation every time we read it. The story is well written and is easily understood. I think the main focus of Hawthorne is to show the conflict, rather than to impress the readers with language.
In the short story Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne, symbolism plays a vital role in the interpretation of the events of the story by the audience. In a work that is apparently never what it seems, drawing upon these symbols for clarity helps to provide the audience with additional depth to the deception that Goodman Brown feels. When going on his errand into the forest one night, Goodman Brown encounters the devil disguised as a man which is the beginning of his demonic encounters. The meeting symbolizes the start of his downward slope into the loss of faith of those around him and his own religious beliefs as well. He navigates the dark and chilling forest only to ultimately end up in the middle of it alone, which represents his journey through life after his revelation about the people in his community that night. His new found beliefs cause a projection of his own internal evil feelings upon his new wife faith. A woman who he once adored and had complete faith in just like her name, he now becomes very distant with and hardly acknowledges. His distance is due...
Undoubtedly, Michael Tritt uses a psychological strategy to critically analyze “Young Goodman Brown”. He carefully constructs his criticism through quotes from other critics and the short story. Sigmund Freud is also quoted because he theorized the projection process.
Faith is accepting what you are taught or told without trying to prove or disprove it, rather than discovering it through experience. Those who believe in God have faith. It has not been proven that God exists; similarly, it has not been proven that humans are kind, honest, and good by nature. Young Goodman Brown is a character in "Young Goodman Brown," who leaves his known world in Salem village and travels an unknown road in a dark forest in the middle of the night, a common motif in literature better known as the Hero's journey, and is faced with obstacles. He must decide if he will carry his journey out till the end, or turn back and not learn the truth about himself and other humans.
“Lead me not into temptation. I can find the way myself,” Rita Mae Brown once remarked. Temptation is all around, no matter where one might be, there is no use in going out and looking for it. For some individuals, the enticement is so strong that it has caused them to break away from the ties that once bound them to their upbringing, such as faith, but for others, it has brought them even closer to their faith. There is no questioning whether or not one would be strong enough to deny the temptation in order to remain pure, but, rather one’s faith is strong enough to go through the test that has been taking place since the very beginning when Adam and Eve were tempted in the Garden of Eden. Tone and symbolism throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne’s
In "Young Goodman Brown," Nathaniel Hawthorne, through the use of deceptive imagery, creates a sense of uncertainty that illuminates the theme of man's inability to operate within a framework of moral absolutism. Within every man there is an innate difference between good and evil and Hawthorne's deliberate use of ambiguity mirrors this complexity of human nature. Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown, is misled by believing in the perfectibility of humanity and in the existence of moral absolutes. According to Nancy Bunge, Hawthorne naturally centers his story upon a Puritan protagonist to convey the "self-righteous" that he regards as the "antithesis of wisdom"(4). Consequently, Young Goodman Brown is unable to accept the indefinable vision of betrayal and evil that he encounters in the forest. The uncertainty of this vision, enhanced by Hawthorne's deliberate, yet effective, use of ambiguity, is also seen in the character of Faith, the shadows and darkness of the forest, and the undetectable boundaries that separate nightmarish dreams from reality.
In the story "Young Goodman Brown", Nathaniel Hawthorne uses a dream to illustrate a young man’s loss of innocence, understanding of religion and his community. Through this dream, the main character Young Goodman realizes that the people that he surrounds himself with are not who he believes them to be. The story of “Young Goodman Brown” focuses on the unconscious mind. The characters in this short-story are able to represent the struggle of Young Goodman’s superego, ego, and id.
In 1835, Nathaniel Hawthorne published the tale of “Young Goodman Brown,” a tale that illustrates many configurations of symbolism used to leave the reader planting the pieces together through his characteristics of detail and imagery. Hawthorne’s prime analogy expressed throughout this tale is the loss of vulnerability and pureness when reaching maturity.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown” manifests a duality of conflict – both an external conflict and an internal conflict. It is the purpose of this essay to explore both types of conflict as manifested in the story.
In Young Goodman Brown, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the tale of a man and his discovery of evil. Hawthorne’s primary concern is with evil and how it affects Young Goodman Brown. Through the use of tone and setting, Hawthorne portrays the nature of evil and the psychological effects it can have on man. He shows how discovering the existence of evil brings Brown to view the world in a cynical way. Brown learns the nature of evil and, therefore, feels surrounded by its presence constantly.
From the beginning of Hawthorne’s story a test of faith prevails. From the moment that Young Goodman Brown parts with his wife, Faith, to when they meet again at the heart of the forest, the very manner Young Goodman Brown has been taught his entire life is at stake. Yet it is not so much Goodman Brown’s faith in God that is the concern but whether or not Goodman Brown feels he can trust anyone or anything he has ever come to know and believe in. Society has preconditioned him to think a certain way, thus through this journey Young Goodman Brown cannot deal with the new Puritan life he witnesses. Since he is unsure of what his society is truly like Goodman Brown is now incapable of knowing his place in society and knowing whom he really is.
Clarice Swisher in “Nathaniel Hawthorne: a Biography” states: ”When Hawthorne called his stories ‘romances,’ he meant that they belong within the romantic movement that . . . . emphasize imagination and personal freedom” (18). It is the purpose of this essay to interpret the theme of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” and determine where this “personal freedom” leads.
Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" (Matthew 14:31) The manner in which Goodman Brown based his faith is a very good example of how not to base one’s faith. The strength of Goodman Browns faith was based on his wife’s faith, his trust in his neighbors, and his personal experiences. The strength of one’s faith is one of the most important aspects of any person, and it is especially important in the story Young Goodman Brown.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”, Goodman Brown struggles with staying pure and not giving in to the devil. Hawthorne utilizes allegory and ambiguity to leave unanswered questions for the reader.
...ther serves to excite and stimulate our senses as we travel into the deranged mind of a killer ? offering us a unique perspective through the first person point of view. Similarly, the ending of ?Young Goodman Brown? offers a moral, but leaves the main character in a state of discord and callousness towards his wife, and his religion. The story is didactic, because the main character is punished for his transgressions. Symbolism, evident especially in Hawthorne?s allegory, and the repetition of Poe?s suspenseful tale serve to further the goals of each writer. Ultimately, Hawthorne?s Goodman Brown becomes isolated from humanity, an issue of the head and the heart, and Poe?s narrator withdraws inside himself, an issue purely of the mind. Recognizing this discord from the self and humanity is essential to understanding the behavior of these troublesome characters.
...Brown, like all humans, sees that everyone can be corrupt and immoral, that it is possible for people to make mistakes. This is extremely disappointing to brown and ruins him. Brown felt that he made the right decision and did not follow the devil, but everyone else around him did. Even his own wife follows the devil. She is supposed to represent holiness and faith, and she is just as corrupt as everyone else. This portrays how even the church, which is supposed to be holy, can be corrupt. The story symbolizes that everyone in society is flawed and no one is perfect. However this idea drives Goodman brown to become insane. He dwells on this fact and loses his ability to see the good in people as well as the bad. Brown couldn't realize that even if people are evil at times, they can still be good people. This is what caused brown to change so drastically.