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The meaning of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown
The character and characterization of the young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The character and characterization of the young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Even a good man can be evil if he has no one to believe in any longer.
In the first section of "Young Goodman Brown" naive goodman brown has high hopes for his voyage. In the beginning Goodman Brown is about to, optimistically, set foot on his journey when his wife, Faith, stops him and says; "pr'y thee, put off your journey until sunrise, and sleep un your own to-night. A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and suck thoughts that she's afraid of herself, sometime." She is afraid that something bad will happen to him on his voyage; even though he knows what he is doing is not religiously correct, he doesn't care. SP. Young Goodman Brown's name, "brown" represents He continues on his travails; Goodmen brown's wife is a symbol of his own faith in God. SP. As he started walking away from his loving wife, "he looked back and saw the head of Faith still peeping after him, with a melancholy air, despite of her pink ribbons." He now is starting to worry a little, but her hope for him is still keeping goodman brows hopes high for his soon to come journey. Faith's pink ribbons represents his hope and his ignorance of the towns folk; Faith is still looking out for him. SP. He continues walking to his destination and says, "Well; she is a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night, I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to Heaven." Goodman Brown believes Faith will help him recover from his negative views when he returns home, he knows she will help him recover from his visit with the traveler.
In the second section young Goodman Brown starts to question is faith. After he ventures far from home he encounters the traveler and says, "Faith kept me back awhile." This pun is important because it represents his wife and ...
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...man Brown." Either way if it was relity or a dream, its a bad omen. He lost trust in his faith and everyone in his village he "often, awaking suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith, and at morning or eventide,when the family knelt down to prayer, he scowled, and mutterd to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and tunred away." His life was gloom after the encounter with the devil, he turned suspitious of everyone, including Faith. The thoughts of his encounter were too vivid to get out of his mind that be became a gloomy man. Never again will he be the same.
If you have no one any longer to belive in its hard to resist evil sin. The symbols of this story help lead to the point of how isolated he made himself at the end of his life with because he sees the same traits in them as he sees in himself, because he also wanted to meet with the devil.
Young Goodman Brown undergoes the hero’s journey in the story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The hero’s journey is a common guideline of events that many writers use in stories to show the physical, mental, and/or emotional transformation the main character or protagonist undergoes throughout the story. It starts with a call to adventure and a supernatural aid. It is then followed by a road of trials and a symbolic death. In the end, the character has a moment of epiphany or realization and then a return. Hawthorne uses all of these in order to show the loss of innocence in Young Goodman Brown as he experiences the hero’s journey.
The biggest symbol in Young Goodman Brown is the idea of faith. Before he goes on his “errand,” he is talking to his wife, promising he will come back, but in actuality he is talking to his faith, as in religion. He subconsciously knows he is going against his faith on this errand, but will return. “My love and my Faith,” replied young Goodman Brown, “of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee. My journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again…” When Brown says later in the story “I am losing my Faith”, he is not only about his wife, (which is shown through her pink ribbon in the tree), but more about his religion, which is flashing before his eyes. This errand was a test of Goodman Brown’s faith. When Brown hears people singing hymns in swears, it is a symbol of the corruption of the church. The name Goodman Brown I think is very ironic. Is he a good man after this errand?
To begin, the introduction to Goodman Brown begins with introducing characters that seem to exemplify youthfulness, earnestness, and innocence. Interactions between Goodman and Faith, such as the "parting kiss" (Hawthorne 239), and even the description of Faith, whose cap contains pink ribbons that the wind plays with contains a sense of whimsy and playfulness that sets the reader up thinking of the young couple in positive terms. However, Goodman changes this quickly with his discussion of leaving, as well as his parting. At this point, we see the conflict within the characterization of Goodman Brown emerge, referring to himself as "a wretch...to leave her on such an errand" (239), a contrast to the initial idea presented of him. This is the beginning of what interested me so much, as the appearance of Goodman Brown was presented ambiguously and painted to be "good" by his interactions with Faith, who was described in a bit more detail.
Before young Goodman Brown begins his journey, he says his farewells to his wife, Faith, who is reluctant to see him go. “And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap while she called to Goodman Brown. ‘Dearest heart,’ whispered she…, ‘prithee put off your journey until sunrise and sleep in your own bed to-night…’ ‘My love and my Faith,’ replied young Goodman Brown, ‘of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee…’” (Hawthorne pg. 1). Before departing on his “journey”, Goodman Brown bids goodbye to his wife. Faith’s pink ribbons are not only a symbol of the innocence and purity of Faith, but also for the innocent and immature views of Goodman Brown, who has until his journey into the woods, only seen the unblemished and holy side of his fellow townspeople rather than understanding that almost all people, good and bad alike, will carry some kind of sin. After entering the woods, Goodman Brown meets a man dressed in “grave and decent attire” who greets the goodman upon seeing him. “‘You are late, Goodman Brown,’ said he. ‘The clock of the Old South was striking as I came through Boston, and that is full fifteen minutes agone.’ ‘Faith kept me back a
In the story, Goodman Brown decides to embark on a night journey, with some kind of evil intentions. He is guided by a man who resembles his grandfather, and despite his hesitancy, proceeds to his destination. Brown is shocked to see religious figures along the way, who share the same evil intentions. He is driven to meet the end when he hears his wife Faith's voice calling out. She is his one strand of good that he struggles to hold on to; when he realizes she might be captured by evil, he fills with fear. At the end is their meeting with the devil-figure, where he calls all people to come together under evil.
Hawthorne skillfully uses Goodman Brown’s wife’s name, Faith, as a symbol of Goodman Brown’s strong faith when Brown’s reassuring response to Faith imply that his faith cannot be weakened: “Amen!’ cried Goodman Brown, “Say thy prayers, dear Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee” (Hawthorne 22). Brown leaves Faith; whom he describes as a “blessed angel on earth,” and journeys to the forest (Hawthorne 22). Taking the dark, dreary road into the forest symbolizes his act of jumping into the path leading to despair. The forest represents sin, and the evil grows stronger and stronger as Goodman walks further into the
For instance, in the beginning of the story, Goodman Brown must leave his newly wed wife, Faith, at sunset for an appointment in the nearby forest. Since his wife worries that he would not return safely, he comforts her and “vows to be true to Faith and to their religious faith” (Lawson). Once Brown arrives at the forest, he is acquainted with a “figure of a man, with grave and decent attire, seated at the foot of an old tree” (“Young Goodman Brown”). This man is eerily “bearing a considerable resemblance to him” which equates that “they might have been taken for father and son” (“Young Goodman Brown”). Though the stranger appears harmless, little did Brown know, that he will actually take a journey with the devil. This is an example that evil and sin can be in many forms and deceptions. As Brown continues on his excursion through the woods, he learns that religious idols with virtuous reputations in the village have done sinful deeds. This makes Brown’s faith in God waver. Sequently, Brown becomes frantic and questions if Faith could also be a victim of this “pious and ungodly” distortion until he sees “something [fluttering] lightly down through the air… a pink ribbon” (“Young Goodman Brown”). As evidence that his worst thought imaginable came true, he cried, “My Faith is gone!” meaning he lost his beloved and innocent wife to Satan
His name also becomes a multilayered metaphor. Being known as “young” represents Goodman Browns innocence and virtue. He is also condensed to represent his own consciousness. But, by leaving his wife, Faith, Young Goodman Brown is giving into the unconscious. " He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind" (Kelly, 191).
While Faith serves as a reason for Goodman Brown to want to flee from walking with the devil further into the forest, she is also the reason he continued on his way towards the Witches’ Sabbath. To clarify, after deciding to turn away from the devil midway on his path towards the Sabbath, Goodman Brown thinks he hears the voice of Faith and catches sight of her pink ribbon floating down from the sky. Whether or not this was a deception set up by the devil, Goodman Brown becomes so angry at the idea of Faith being in danger that he ironically continues on his path towards the Devil. “My Faith is gone! …There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name,” cries Goodman Brown after seeing the ribbon. After this climatic scene, Goodman Brown will never look at his wife again as an entirely pure person, as he is soon to learn that she was seduced by the devil when he meets her at the Witches’ Sabbath. In other words, he has not only lost his faith in the goodness of God, but also in the goodness of his wife, who he used to view as a perfect being that is incapable of sin, much like a God. However, Goodman Brown soon regains his faith in God and turns toward Heaven, while ironically leaving his faith in his wife Faith
Nathaniel Hawthorne uses different people as symbols throughout "Young Goodman Brown." The largest symbolic roles in the story are goodman Brown and his wife Faith. Both of the characters' names are symbolic and representative of their personalities. "'With Heaven above and Faith below, I will stand firm against the devil!' cried goodman Brown," is just one of many quotes that directly relates goodman Brown's personality with his name (189). Goodman Brown is truly a good man. Faith, goodman Brown's wife, also has a name that is indicative of her nature. The story directly supports this point in the phrase "Faith, as the wife was aptly named . . . " (184). Faith is persistent in trying to keep goodman Brown off the path of sin in the first part of the story: " . . . pr'y thee, put off your journey until sunrise, and sleep in your own bed to-night" (184). Hawthorne does an excellent job of turning the main characters into symbols that are prominent throughout the story.
It is surprising, in a way, to discover how few of the many critics who have discussed "Young Goodman Brown'' agree on any aspect of the work except that it is an excellent short story. D. M. McKeithan says that its theme is "sin and its blighting effects." Richard H. Fogle observes, "Hawthorne the artist refuses to limit himself to a single and doctrinaire conclusion, proceeding instead by indirection,'' implying, presumably, that it is inartistic to say something which can be clearly understood by the readers. Gordon and Tate assert, "Hawthorne is dealing with his favorite theme: the unhappiness which the human heart suffers as a result of its innate depravity." Austin Warren says, ''His point is the devastating effect of moral scepticism." Almost all critics agree, however, that Young Goodman Brown lost his faith. Their conclusions are based, perhaps, upon the statement, "My Faith is gone!" made by Brown when he recognizes his wife's voice and ribbon. I should like to examine the story once more to show that Young Goodman Brown did not lose his faith at all. In fact, not only did he retain his faith, but during his horrible experience he actually discovered the full and frightening significance of his faith.
Goodman Brown in the short story “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne goes on a journey into the woods to meet a stranger which ultimately changes his life. His blind faith in his religion makes him believe that all people are good. Goodman Brown is a trusting, naive man in the beginning if the story but witnesses a witch ceremony that changes his personality drastically. Seeing his family and his neighbors taking part in the sinful act changes his outlook on life and his outlook on their personalities as well. Brown’s blind faith in people and his naivety make the shock of what he sees in the woods turn him into an untrusting, paranoid man.
The names of the characters Young Goodman Brown and his wife Faith are both symbolic. “Young" infers the title character is naive and new at life. Brown’s youth suggests that he is an uncorrupted and innocent young man. Moreover, "Goodman" suggests his self-righteousness thinking he is a good man. Furthermore, "Brown" indicates he is a commoner. Thus, the full name implies he is the average naive and self-righteous Puritan. Faith’s name in the story represents his need to cling to faith. She symbolizes everything that is good and Christian to Goodman Brown. Brown’s marriage to Faith is symbolic of how he clings to faith in good in the world.
...dman Brown cries out “My Faith is gone! There is no good on earth and sin is but a name. Come devil! For to thee is this world given”(cite). This where he begins to believe there is only sin in the world and his faith in humanity is completely destroyed. He still vows to stand firm against the devil, however he has doubts that heaven exists at all. With his loss of humanity he can no longer look at his fellow neighbors, which he had once held with high esteem, he now views as sinful and hypocritical. The faith that did shine in his heart the darkness of the world has tainted the idea that life is good and pure. Goodman Brown is completely consumed by his doubts and he is a distrustful and unable to have any sympathy or love to others. He never recovers his faith and even after death his family had nothing to say good about him, “for his dying hour was gloom”(cite).
Goodman Brown, a young man who was only married for three months, left his home and his wife, Faith, to go into the forest and spend the night on some mission that he will not explain. Even though Faith has strong feelings about his journey and begs him not to leave, Brown has made his decision and leaves everything behind. Faith is appropriately named, because she represents Browns faith and what he believes in. The name is genuine, religious and hopeful. It represents the good side of Brown and his hope for life. He feels bad for leaving her because he knows what he is about to do is evil and goes against his faith. Brown swears that after this night he will be good and not do anything evil again and vow his life to Faith. Brown is upset about leaving her because he knows that what he is about to do in the forest is evil and goes against his Faith. Hawthorne describes Browns journey as "crossing the threshold", meaning that he is going from one part of his life to another, he is leaving the genuine good side to go to the bad evil side.