young goodman brown symbolism essay

Young Goodman Brown Setting Analysis, Symbolism, & Characters

Need to analyze Young Goodman Brown setting? This essay on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story explores the symbols, themes, characters, & setting of Young Goodman Brown .

Introduction

Young goodman brown: setting and characters, symbolism in young goodman brown, works cited.

The setting in The Young Goodman Brown influences the development of plot and character. The setting of a play is a crucial element in terms of establishing direction, feel and structure that a specific story carries. Usually, a reflection of numerous essential aspects of work; culture, time, location and tone is determined through the setting of the story. That is how an ambience and emotional connotation within readers are created.

The characters in Young Goodman Brown are direct and sure by-products of communities and environments in which they live. The story portrays a paradigm of a setting’s significance. It exemplifies the importance of setting as it reflects and applies to the core meaning of the piece. The story’s background provides a historical look into the characters and their lifestyles.

For example, one quickly discovers that Brown lives in a puritan society in the 17th century (Crowley 65). Thus, several inferences of the character of Brown can be made. This essay is an analysis of the story’s setting, symbolism and characters.I’ve selected the character of Brown, who contends with aspects of the past. It illustrates how Hawthorne’s setting and symbolism of the Young Goodman Brown contribute to the meaning of the entire piece.

Gothic elements are used by Hawthorne in the story to make Brown’s experience convincing and engaging. In part, the gothic aspects of the setting contribute to the story’s intention. The setting is mysterious, and this develops conflict in Brown’s mind and builds his character.

The setting of the Young Goodman Brown ,(the time and location of the action, dusk and forest) cumulatively assists in the devil destructing Brown’s commitment to Puritanism. The elements of forest and darkness turn to haunt Brown. This increases Brown’s internal problems and fear. Due to fear, Brown begins conceiving evil everywhere along his route through the forest. In other words, the forest as a whole represents a gorge of darkness and unconsciousness for Brown (Lynch 64).

With all these devilish elements, the forest at times turns to be part of Brown’s personality. The denser he ventures into the forest, the more he becomes one of his evil. Brown transforms into a devil out of fear as evil exists everywhere. Brown moves too deep into the darkness, period of uncertainty and religious clashes throughout his experience.

Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbolism to create a parallel situation of more in-depth and indirect references. Besides establishing depth resulting from indirectness, symbols enrich Brown’s experience by deepening the conflict in his mind. Also, by utilizing some symbols, Hawthorne violates the fixed conceptual purpose associated with Brown as a character.

Young Goodman Brown is full of symbolism. It applies a cluster of symbols which depicts a series of contrasts reflecting both; problems experienced by Brown; and the extent these symbols influence his personality. Dusk and sunrise, for example, indicate two extremes which indicate commencement and end of a journey.

Dusk, on the one hand, is the period that proceeds darkness and therefore stands for the coming of evil. Dusk, a time between light and total darkness, depicts times of hesitation which Brown begins to experience after meeting the devil.

Further, darkness which is a reflection of evil is purposed to put Brown in a real experience of facing evil. Sunrise, on the other hand, marks the end of the journey. It is a representation of the state of certainty which Brown comes up with by the end of the story. This moment forms clarity in Brown’s belie and attitude towards the village people. This contrast of light and darkness is another good example of symbolism in the Young Goodman Brown.

In summary, the Young Goodman Brown is a Puritanism satire. From the author’s point of view, it is a belief system that pursues an ideology that deepens conflicts and divisions. It discards all efforts at establishing any common position among the numerous Christian sects on the one hand, and other beliefs on the other.

The aspect of Puritanism, through distrust and doubt, encourages the possibility of splitting societies over religious issues at the expense of unity and togetherness. It tries to expel those who are not Puritans and those who do not conform and looks upon them as sinners. This past attends negatively on Brown’s personality as he obeys out of fear.

The story offers historical insight into the character of Brown and his lifestyle. For instance, we quickly understand that Brown lives in a Puritan society right from the onset. We can see Puritanism in some aspects as unrelenting and biased. Puritanism is a Christian sect that looks upon its members as the only devout and looks upon members of other sects as non-conformists.

The Puritans believe that they are the only ones who should be admitted in the membership of the church. The congregations of such individuals portray the true church. The sect does not tolerate others and relates itself to the devil against general humanity (Lynch 65).

This sort of extremism of Puritan principles indicates the spread of puritan ideology and its reception among people. Thus, the bias nature of Puritanism leads to hatred, distrust and segmentation among human beings. According to Lynch (2009; P. 69), puritans established themselves a distrustful society for a vibrant congregation which would later harm them.

The main character of Young Goodman Brown is a reflection of the puritan ideology. In him, Hawthorne’s Puritanism is satirized as the dominant faith in his hometown. He looks at Puritanism in a manner to suggest his disillusionment and dissatisfaction with it as a system of belief. In the descriptions of Goodman Brown, Hawthorne seems to discover back his personal experiences with puritans (Lynch 70).

Crowley, Joseph. Nathaniel Hawthorne . New York: Taylor & Francis, 1971.

Lynch, John. Nathaniel Hawthorne . Massachusetts: Salem Press, 2009.

Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, October 29). Young Goodman Brown Setting Analysis, Symbolism, & Characters. https://ivypanda.com/essays/importance-of-setting-and-symbolic-characters-in-young-goodman-brown/

"Young Goodman Brown Setting Analysis, Symbolism, & Characters." IvyPanda , 29 Oct. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/importance-of-setting-and-symbolic-characters-in-young-goodman-brown/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Young Goodman Brown Setting Analysis, Symbolism, & Characters'. 29 October.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Young Goodman Brown Setting Analysis, Symbolism, & Characters." October 29, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/importance-of-setting-and-symbolic-characters-in-young-goodman-brown/.

1. IvyPanda . "Young Goodman Brown Setting Analysis, Symbolism, & Characters." October 29, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/importance-of-setting-and-symbolic-characters-in-young-goodman-brown/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Young Goodman Brown Setting Analysis, Symbolism, & Characters." October 29, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/importance-of-setting-and-symbolic-characters-in-young-goodman-brown/.

Comparing and Contrasting “A Zen Dusk” and “Splash”
Young Goodman Brown. Puritanism and Hawthorne [Analysis]
Puritanism in “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
History in "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Young Goodman Brown- Nathaniel Hawthorne
Gothic Elements in “Young Goodman Brown”
Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”: Facing the Darkness
Belief in Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown"
“Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Key Passage of "Young Goodman Brown" by Hawthorne
“Barn Burning” by William Faulkner
Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs Mary Rowlandson
Literary Critique on the story "Aura" by Annecy Baez
Summary of "Abraham Lincoln" and "The Second American Revolution" by James M. McPherson
Literature Study on "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Literature › Analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown

Analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on April 28, 2022

“Young Goodman Brown,” initially appearing in Mosses from an Old Manse (1846) as both a bleak romance and a moral allegory, has maintained its hold on contemporary readers as a tale of initiation, alienation, and evil. Undoubtedly one of Nathaniel Hawthorne ’s most disturbing stories, it opens as a young man of the town, Goodman Brown, bids farewell to his wife, Faith, and sets off on a path toward the dark forest. Brown’s journey to the forest and his exposure to life-shattering encounters and revelations remain the subject of speculation. Although his meeting with the devil is clear, the results remain ambiguous and perplexing. When viewed as a bildungsroman, it is one of the bleakest in American fiction, long or short. Rather than an initiation into manhood, Brown’s is an initiation into evil.

Much of the power of the story derives from the opening scene of missed chances: Faith, introduced in the second sentence and given the first words of dialogue, leans out the window, her pink ribbons fl uttering, and entreats her husband to stay. Brown, however, although he continues to think of returning, is determined to depart on this dark road. Almost instantly, he—and the reader—become enveloped in the darkness and gloom of the forest. The narrator equates the dreariness with both solitude and evil, and the aura of doom pervades the story. Along the way Brown meets a man who looks curiously like Brown’s father and grandfather; that this traveler is the devil is clear from his snakelike stick and evident power to assume different shapes. The traveler reveals his role in helping Brown’s Puritan ancestors commit crimes against Quakers and Indians. Brown protests that his family has traditionally revered the principles of Christianity, but the traveler provides numerous examples of his converts across all of New England, in both small town and state positions, in the fields of politics, religion, and the law. That Brown himself is from Salem suggests Hawthorne’s fascination with the Puritan guilt of his—and our—own forefathers manifested in other short stories such as “Alice Doane’s Appeal,” a tale about the Puritan obsession with witchcraft.

Nathaniel Hawthorne. Getty Images

Next Brown hides in the forest, demonstrating his hypocrisy, as he sees Goody Cloyse, a pious townswoman, walking along the dark trail. She and the traveler openly discuss her witchcraft, and when Brown leaves his hiding place, he marvels at his memory of Goody Cloyse teaching him his catechism when he was a boy. Again Brown thinks of returning home to Faith, but instead he still hides in the forest, recognizing many of the townspeople passing through and hearing that tonight’s forest meeting will be attended by people from Connecticut and Rhode Island, as well as Massachusetts. Just as Brown thinks he can resist the devil and emerge from his hiding place, he hears a scream that sounds like Faith’s, and a pink ribbon fl utters to his feet.

From this point on, Brown himself becomes a grotesque figure, throwing himself with wholehearted if somewhat hysterical and despairing eagerness into the center of the darkness illuminated by the blazing fires of the meeting, clearly an image of hell. He recognizes all the most respected folk of the state unabashedly mingling with common thieves, prostitutes, and even criminals. The dreadful harmony of all these voices joined together in devil worship reaches a crescendo as the converts are brought forth: Among them, dimly recognized, are Brown’s father, mother, and wife. The devil assures the assembly that everyone has secretly committed crimes, from those of illicit sex to those of murdering husbands, fathers, and illegitimate babies. Indeed, says the devil, the whole earth is “one stain of guilt, one mighty blood spot.” Evil, not good, he asserts, is the nature of humankind.

As do Adam and Eve, Brown and Faith stand on the edge of wickedness: Brown screams to Faith to resist the devil, and with these words the nightmare ends, Brown awakening against a rock. The narrator asks, Was his experience really a dream? Whether or not we believe in the reality of Brown’s experience; the narrator affirms that it clearly foreshadows Brown’s altered life: Henceforward he is a dour and disillusioned man who sees no good and trusts in no one. In just such a way did the Salem witch trials effectively bring about the collapse of Puritanism, yet the story resonates long afterward: We as readers understand that we are the mythical descendants of Young Goodman Brown. Why does Brown ignore Faith’s warnings? Do we interpret the tale as one of infidelity? Of Christian hypocrisy? Of colonial history? If Brown, as an American Adam, looked upon Eden and found it wanting, do we inherit his frightful knowledge? Or can we interpret it as a cautionary tale, one whose lessons can benefit us as we live our modern lives? More than a century and a half later, Hawthorne’s story continues to beguile us with its gloomy aura and subtly ambiguous theme.

Analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Stories

Analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Novels

BIBLIOGRAPHY Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Young Goodman Brown.” In Tales and Sketches, edited by Roy Harvey Pearce. New York: Library of America, 1982. Newman, Lea B. V. A Reader’s Guide to the Short Stories of Hawthorne. New York: Macmillan, 1979.

A Summary and Analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘Young Goodman Brown’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Young Goodman Brown’ (1835) is one of the most famous stories by the American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Inspired in part by the Salem witch craze of 1692, the story is a powerful exploration of the dark side of human nature. How Hawthorne loads his story with such power is worthy of some closer analysis, but before we get there, you can read ‘Young Goodman Brown’ here .

Let’s begin with a summary of the story’s plot. We have analysed the story’s symbolism in a separate post .

Plot summary

In the village of Salem one evening, a young man named Goodman Brown bids farewell to his wife, Faith. Faith wants him to stay with her, but Goodman Brown says he needs to travel tonight. When he leaves her, he vows to himself that he will be good after his business is done tonight.

He meets an old men dressed in ‘grave and decent attire’, as he is travelling on the road. This man has a staff in his hand which resembles a snake. Sensing his young companion is weary, the man offers Goodman Brown the staff but Goodman Brown declines. Indeed, he has honoured his promise to meet with the man tonight, but he has misgivings about it, and wants to turn back and go home. He is a good Christian, and his ancestors were good Christians, and he doesn’t want to get involved.

The man with the staff responds by saying that he knew Goodman Brown’s father and grandfather as well as numerous other high-profile Christians in the state, including the governor himself.

Goodman Brown asks how he will be able to look his minister in the face if he goes on with the business they have planned. This amuses the older man, although when Goodman Brown expresses his fears concerning his wife, Faith, the man is more sympathetic, and reassures him that Faith will come to no harm.

As they walk deeper into the woods, Goodman Brown recognises Goody Cloyse, the old woman who taught him religious instruction when he was a child. As she is well-respected back in his village, he doesn’t want her to recognise him and see him with the strange man with the staff, so he tells the older man that he will come off the path until they have passed the woman.

From the trees, Goodman Brown is astonished when the older man, upon reaching Goody Cloyse, taps her on the shoulder with his snake-staff, and she recognises him as ‘the Devil’. It turns out she is actually a witch (she even cackles) and is accompanying the man to their sabbath!

The two of them talk of young Goodman Brown, whom they will be initiating into their ‘communion’ tonight. Goodman Brown watches as the woman takes the man’s staff and promptly vanishes. He then rejoins the man on the path, shocked by what he has witnessed.

They continue on for a while, but then Goodman Brown has second thoughts again, and sits down, determined not to go any further. But the older man tells him he will think better of it. Two riders approach, who are clearly also involved in the ‘deviltry’ of the night, and as Goodman Brown and his companion walk on, they hear a woman lamenting, and then a scream.

A pink ribbon floats through the air to him, such as his wife Faith wore. ‘My Faith is gone!’ Goodman Brown cries.

Realising all hope is lost, he becomes almost possessed by demonic despair and powers on through the forest, laughing wildly. He stumbles into a clearing in the woods, where a black mass or witches’ sabbath appears to be taking place, featuring many people he recognises, including Deacon Gookin.

He then sees a veiled figure, who turns out to be his wife, Faith, who is a member of the sinful community gathered there. Blood is presented in a bowl, preparatory to the ‘baptism’ initiating the new converts. However, Goodman Brown resists, before staggering against a rock.

The next morning, he returns to Salem village, and everyone from the witches’ sabbath is acting as usual: Goody Cloyse is catechising a child, and Deacon Gookin is praying, while Faith welcomes her husband with joy. We are led to doubt whether what he witnessed the night before actually happened.

Was it all a dream? Either way, he becomes a sterner man thereafter, very ‘distrustful’, seeing sin everywhere. He becomes distant from his own wife. The story ends years in the future, with the narrator telling us that when Goodman Brown died, his neighbours ‘carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom.’

Herman Melville, the author of Moby-Dick , thought ‘Young Goodman Brown’ was ‘deep as Dante’ in its exploration of the darker side of human nature.

The story is remarkable in its depiction of evil not least because it raises interesting questions about what it means to ‘become’ or ‘know’ evil. Young Goodman Brown actually resists the initiation in the woodland clearing, involving the blood-baptism, but the story suggests that this doesn’t matter: he has still come to recognise evil and has thus been initiated into its ways.

If it’s true that the only two kinds of person who are wholly obsessed with evil are the very bad and the very good (in the sense of being puritanical about making sure everyone else is as ‘good’ as they are), then ‘Young Goodman Brown’ is as much a cautionary tale about being lured over to the ‘dark side’, because even if you don’t end up embracing it, it will already have embraced you. The Puritan is as possessed by ‘evil’ as the devil-worshipper they condemn; they’re just possessed in different ways.

In other words, Goodman Brown is clearly drawn to the world of sin and witchcraft, as his meeting with the older man with the snake-staff (the ‘serpent’ summoning the satanic snake from the Garden of Eden, of course, which tempted Eve) indicates. Once he has made the decision to go down to the woods tonight he was always going to be in for a big surprise.

The twist, of course, is that in leaving Faith (his wife) behind, he finds Faith again, in the woodland black sabbath, where she is at first veiled and then revealed to him. (Calling her ‘Faith’, by the way, is an inspired touch by Hawthorne; it was a popular woman’s name among Puritans, but it resonates with obviously symbolic significance in this story about faith and sin.)

‘Young Goodman Brown’, then, is a highly symbolic and suggestive story about the nature of evil and also the nature of puritanism: once the veil has been lifted, Young Goodman Brown sees evil everywhere, even where it may well not actually exist.

This last part is important: although Hawthorne leaves some room for ambiguity, and the narrator himself seems uncertain, if Goodman Brown did merely dream the events of the witches’ sabbath, that raises further questions. He already suspects those in authority around him, those who teach religion to the village children or who dutifully pray, of secretly harbouring evil desires and performing dark deeds. His dream was merely an enacting of these (paranoid) suspicions.

But his conviction that the dream was real, and that his wife, his minister, Goody Cloyse, and the others are all secretly marked by evil, suggests that extreme puritanism destroys one’s moral compass and leads to a life devoid of pleasure or meaning.

2 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘Young Goodman Brown’”

The symbolism in this story is as subtle as a ton of rocks. This is not one of my favorite Hawthorne stories.

Pingback: A Summary and Analysis of Washington Irving’s ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ – Interesting Literature

Comments are closed.

Discover more from Interesting Literature

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Young Goodman Brown

26 pages • 52 minutes read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Story Analysis

Character Analysis

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

The Snake-Like Staff

The traveler carries a staff with him while accompanying Brown on his journey through the woods. The staff assumes demonlike supernatural powers as it possesses the ability to help the traveler traverse the wilderness at fast speeds. The staff is described as “twisted,” and when Brown questions how he should meet the eye of the clergy each Sunday if he continues the journey, the traveler “burst[s] into a fit of irrepressible mirth, shaking himself so violently that his snake-like staff actually seemed to wriggle in sympathy” (4). Additionally, when the traveler touches Goody Cloyse with the staff, she immediately screams out “devil!”—suggesting (if not outright affirming) that the traveler is a manifestation of the devil.

Don't Miss Out!

Access Study Guide Now

Related Titles

By Nathaniel Hawthorne

Dr. Heidegger's Experiment

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Ethan Brand

My Kinsman Major Molineux

Rappaccini's Daughter

The Ambitious Guest

The Artist of the Beautiful

The Birthmark

The Blithedale Romance

The Hollow of the Three Hills

The House of the Seven Gables

The Marble Faun

The Maypole Of Merry Mount

The Minister's Black Veil

The Scarlet Letter

The Wives of the Dead

Featured Collections

Allegories of Modern Life

View Collection

American Literature

Good & Evil

Required Reading Lists

Young Goodman Brown

Nathaniel hawthorne, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

The Hypocrisy of Puritanism

Hawthorne sets “Young Goodman Brown” in the New England town of Salem, where the Puritans tried to create a religious society with strict morals and pious norms, but also where the infamous Witch Trials took place. The Puritans believed that some people are predestined by God to go to heaven, and that those people are identifiable by their morality and piousness; people cannot earn their way to heaven by performing good works, but if they…

Losing Faith and Innocence

“Young Goodman Brown” is the story of how a young “good” man named Goodman Brown loses his innocent belief in religious faith. Goodman Brown’s loss of innocence happens during a vivid nightmare in which he ventures into a dark forest and sees all of the people he had considered faithful in his life gathered around a fire at a witches’ conversion ceremony with the devil presiding from on high. By the end of his journey…

Nature and the Supernatural

Hawthorne uses the forest to represent the wild fearful world of nature, which contrasts starkly with the pious orderly town of Salem. The threshold Goodman Brown finds himself perched upon in the opening lines of the story is not just between himself and his wife, Faith , but between the safety of the town and the haunted realm of the forest into which he ventures. Home is a safe harbor of faith, but the forest…

Saints vs. Sinners

The Puritan religion dictated that everyone on earth was either an evil sinner doomed to burn in hell or a pure earthly saint destined for heaven. To avoid being perceived as anything but wholly good, Goodman Brown (who, like his wife, Faith , is also “aptly named”) is obsessed with the idea of veiling his own sinfulness. Goodman Brown’s paranoia as he navigates the forest, dodging behind trees in terror of being outed as a…

Family and Individual Choice

Young Goodman Brown makes reference to many generations of the Brown family, both Goodman Brown’s ancestors and his descendants. Goodman Brown must choose whether to follow his ancestors’ example, for better or for worse, or whether to make his own decisions and break away from family tradition. The tragedy of the story is that he is unable to choose: he loses faith in following family tradition, but he can’t reject his family and start new…

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Symbolism — Symbolism In Young Goodman Brown

Symbolism in Young Goodman Brown

Categories: Symbolism

About this sample

Words: 505 |

Published: Mar 19, 2024

Words: 505 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

The symbolism of the forest, the symbolism of the devil figure, the symbolism of the pink ribbons, the symbolism of brown's journey.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Prof Ernest (PhD)

Verified writer

Expert in: Literature

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

1 pages / 2112 words

1 pages / 560 words

3 pages / 1486 words

4 pages / 1709 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Symbolism

Adrienne Rich's poem "Diving into the Wreck" is a powerful and evocative work that delves into themes of identity, self-discovery, and empowerment. Through vivid imagery and metaphorical language, Rich takes the reader on a [...]

The title of the novel To Kill A Mockingbird means to punish something that does not deserve to be punished, reflecting the central theme of injustice. For example, when Miss Maudie said, “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but [...]

Ralph Ellison's "Battle Royal," a pivotal chapter in his novel "Invisible Man," is a powerful and thought-provoking exploration of racism, identity, and the struggle for self-recognition in a society marked by prejudice and [...]

"A River Runs Through It," both a novella and a later film adaptation, beautifully captures the profound connection between nature, family, and the human spirit. Set against the backdrop of the stunning Montana wilderness, this [...]

The beautiful Pacific Northwest serves as a perfect backdrop for Raymond Carver’s stories, full of recurring symbolism, underlying themes, and significant motifs, most importantly the repeated theme of water. Just as water plays [...]

In the play, Death and the Maiden, Ariel Dorfman employs symbolism through the characters and their actions to reflect aspects of the corrupt Chilean society that Dorfman himself lived through. Act II, scene i illustrates the [...]

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

Instructions Followed To The Letter
Deadlines Met At Every Stage
Unique And Plagiarism Free

Allegory and Symbolism in Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown

Nathaniel Hawthorne is a nineteenth-century American writer of the Romantic Movement. Hawthorne was born is Salem, Massachusetts, and this is the place he used as the setting for some of his works: such as “The Scarlett Letter”, “the Blithedale Romance” and “Young Goodman Brown”. In writing, Hawthorne was known for his use of allegory and symbolism, which made his stories a joy for everyone to read. Hawthorne was said to be the first American writer who was conscious of the failure of modern man to realize his full capacity for moral growth.

His stories contain much about the life he knew as a child being brought up in a Puritan society. As Hawthorne’s writing continued it was filled with the same amount of sin and evil as his first writings. Evil that was revealed through his works. “Young Goodman Brown” was said to be one of the best stories ever written by Hawthorne (Adams70). “The Marble Faun: and “the Scarlett Letter were some of the other stories written by Hawthorne , and they were said to be “Young Goodman Brown” grown older.

In this selection there is a question of maturity for Goodman Brown and whether he is good or evil. There is also a transition from childishness to adolescence to maturity. This short story in particular has a feeling of adultery, betrayal, and deception as in some of his other works. It was said by Richard P. Adams that “young Goodman Brown” was a germ for nearly all his best work that followed (Adams 71). The use of symbolism in “young Goodman Brown” shows that evil is everywhere, which becomes evident in the conclusion of this short story .

Hawthorne’s works are filled with symbolic elements and allegorical elements. “Young Goodman Brown” deals mostly with conventional allegorical elements, such as Young Goodman Brown and Faith. In writing his short stories or novels he based their depiction of sin on the fact that he feels like his father and grandfather committed great sins. There are two main characters in this short story, Faith and Young Goodman Brown. “Young Goodman Brown is everyman seventeenth-century New England the title as usual giving the clue.

He is the son of the Old Adam, and recently wedded to Faith. We must note that every word is significant in the opening sentence: “Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunset into the street of Sale, Village; but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his young w2ife. ‘She begs him to ‘put off his journey until sunrise,’ but he declares he cannot…. [It] should not escape us that she tries to stop him because she is a similar compulsion to go on a journey’ herself-‘She talks dreams, too, ‘Young Goodman Brown reflects as he leaves her.

The journey each must take alone, in dread, at night, is the journey away form home and the community from conscious, everyday social life , to the wilderness where the hidden self satisfies or forces us to realize its subconscious fears and prompting in sleep. We take that journey with him into the awful forest. Noting the difference between the town and the forest. We see Hawthorne using the Puritan association of trees and animals. When Young Goodman associates returns to Salem Village, his eyes are opened to the true nature of his fellowmen, that is human nature; he inescapably knows that what he suspected of himself is true of all men.. .

Hawthorne has made a dramatic poem of the Calvinist experience in New England. The unfailing tact with which the experience is evoked subjectively in the more impressive concrete terms, is a subordinate proof of genius. I should prefer to stress the wonderful I control of local and total rhythm, which never falters of stackers, and rises from the quest but impressive opening to its poetic climax in the superb and moving finale. Hawthorne has imaginatively recreated for the reader that Calvinist sense of sin, that theory did in actuality shape the early social and spiritual history of New England.

But in Hawthorne by a wonderful feat of translation, it has no religious significance; it is as a psychological state that it explored. Young Goodman Brown’s faith in human beings, and losing it he is doomed to isolation forever (Peabody 331). ” Young Goodman Brown is the main character and the protagonist, and Faith Brown, his wife is said to be one of the antagonists in this selection. Young Goodman Brown is a husband of three months and is still said to be immature. Brown symbolizes immaturity, goodness, and everyman. He is a very religious person, happy in his marriage, trustworthy and nave.

Young Goodman Brown is stern, sad, darkly meditative, distrustful if not a desperate man (Adams 72). ” Brown is said to be nave because he goes into this evil forest even though his wife warned him of the danger that he was about to encounter. Brown, actually is every man, whether young or old our parents in some way try to protect us form danger and that’s just what his mother’s ghost was trying to do, but as we all know our fathers pushes us on even if we are going to make a mistake and that’s just what his father’s ghost did. This forest represents evil and destruction.

There is always an association between forests and evil because of its dark and gloomy nature. That is why the witch meetings were held in the midst of it. Faith was another character in the story; she was the wife of Young Goodman Brown. This young woman is filled with sin yet she is said to be Godly. Because Faith was so honest and Godly, Young Goodman Brown put all of his faith in her, which made heroin of his worst enemies. Faith is said to be a good wife pure and poisonous, a saint and sinner and a pretty pink ribbon-wearing woman. Hoffman writes that Faith is the forest.

They both are considered to be evil (Levy 121). Faith’s ribbon is a description of her personality or her inner-self. The pink ribbon that Faith wears is a symbol of sin and purities. Faith’s ribbon is found in the evil forest and that’s when Faith is really seen as an unclear person. Faith is also said to have committed adultery not only against Young Goodman Brown but also against God because she gave in to the likes of the devil. The ribbons provide a continuity between faith as an ideal of religious fidelity and as partner in a witches Sabbath. Levy 122). The other character in this story was the devil or the other antagonist of Young Goodman Brown.

The devil figure has a double function; he encourages and frightens the next candidate up for the evil baptism or damnation. This man is seen as an old person dressed raggedly and considered to be evil in a sense because he is in the forest. He leads Young Brown through the woods with a staff. A staff to some may symbolize Godliness but this one was carved in the shape of a snake, which is associated with evil and sneakiness as in the Garden of Eden.

This staff is what Young Goodman Brown carried in to the witch meeting. Even though there were some major characters , there were some flat characters also: Goody Cloyse, the minister, and the deacon. Goody Cloyse was supposed to be the holy lady that taught everyone the catechism but she was just as evil as the forest because she was also a witch. The minister and the deacon were also corrupted and evil. They all were considered to be holy and people of God, but they were just the opposite. “Young Goodman Brown” was a short story that dealt with the realisms of reality.

There was a question asked by the author at the end of the story: was this story a dream or was it reality? Young Goodman Brown at the beginning of this story was a immature, good, loyal, trustworthy, and holy man. He lacked strength, courage, firmness, seriousness, and determination as Puritan should, but at a point in this story he became an adult and matured. The story ended with Goodman Brown becoming a stern, sad darkly meditative, distrustful, if not desperate man. Hawthorne used all the character in this story to prove that good people also contain evil aspects.

To export a reference to this essay please select a referencing style below: