The Theme Of Faith In Young Goodman Brown

“Young Goodman Brown” is a story about a Salem inhabitant who brawls with his religious faith. He is met and swayed by an Old man (devil) in the forest to follow a dark path down to a formality. Throughout the short story, Young Goodman Brown starts questioning and doubting his faith due to the events taking place in the forest. The individuals around him seem to hold a heavy influence of how strong his own belief should be. It is never told if what happened that day in the forest was reality or simply a corrupt dream, but Young Goodman Brown 's life was a scuffle from that day forward. I will converse how the author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, makes Brown’s “faith” corruptible by using themes and symbols that have a binary meaning in the story.

Many readers will contend that the pink ribbon symbolizes a mixture of the colors red, which to many, represent evil, and white, which represents pureness, which creates the representation of the struggle Brown is facing within himself. During the ceremony when Faiths’ ribbon falls from the sky, Young Goodman Brown contemplates the idea of becoming a devils admirer himself. While this theory could be true, we are never given the confirmation that Young Goodman Brown actually gave up his faith and became a devil’s devotee, he questioned his faith up until that last moment where he gripped tightly to that pink

When we read about Young Goodman Brown and his wife, Faith’s, relationship, we get the sense of eternal love, which would make the previous statement true. We learn that Young Goodman Brown holds on to love for his wife Faith until the end of the story when his relationship changes. We can argue that the era of when this story took place wasn’t romanticism, rather than dark and faithless. The beginning of the story might give us a sense of love and how a husband is reluctant to leave his wife behind. But, if we analyze the story we can actually see the real meaning of every symbol that the story holds. Dark, religion, and betrayal is what this story truly about. The dark period of Salem, the loss of religion within a good Christian, and the betrayal of a loving