Young Goodman Brown

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The Devil fully discredits Young Goodman Brown by using his wife, Faith, against him. Hawthorne uses his wife, Faith in an allegorical way throughout the story. Faith is not only his wife, but represents his religious devotion to Puritanism. In leaving Faith, Brown forsakes his belief in the godliness of humanity (Korb, 2002). It is shown by:

The cry of grief, rage and terror, was yet piercing the night, when the unhappy husband held his breath for a response. There was a scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fading into far-off laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving the clear and silent sky above Goodman Brown. But something fluttered lightly down through the air, and caught on the branch of a tree. The young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon. “My Faith is gone!” cried he, after one stupefied moment. “There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil! For to thee is this world given. (Hawthorne).”

The reader is now aware that the Devil has broken Young Goodman Brown. “‘But where is Faith?; thought Goodman Brown; and, as hope came into his heart, he trembled.” It seems to me that all Hawthorne can legitimately be made to say between the ribbon and the new hope is that Faith seems to have defected; but that Brown sees now the goodness of the Devil’s proposal is far from evident (Paulits, Jan. 1970, pp. 577-584).

The next morning, Young Goodman Brown has transformed into a different person. He is no longer this happy go lucky man; now he is hesitant to believe or trust anyone. Goody Cloyse, that excellent old Christian, stood in the early sunshine, at her own lattice, catechising a little girl, who had brought her a pint of morning’s milk. Goodman Brown snatched away the child, as if from the grasp of the fiend himself (Hawthorne). His actions toward his wife Faith are different. Turning the corner by the meeting-house, he spied Faith’s head, wearing the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at the sight of him, that she skipt along the street, and almost kissed her husband before the whole village. But Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting (Hawthorne). Goodman Brown is described as a stern, sad, darkly meditative, distrustful,and desperate man from the night of that fearful dream.

Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest, and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting? The reader is left to decide the answer to that question. The reader can conclude that throughout the story Young Goodman Brown’s credibility as a person has deteriorated. He is strange in the sense of never fully defending against what he thought might actually be wrong. Usually a person would say “No that can’t be true”. However, Brown always showed an element of belief and follows the old man/devil deeper into the forest. Goodman Brown fails to recognize that the devil can twist a person’s perception of situations. Goodman Brown should have covered his ears and eyes to avoid the deception of the devil. Young Goodman Brown’s downfall of believing and following blindly enables the reader to accept Brown’s inability to decipher his own experience at the conclusion of the story. The reader has no choice but to believe that Goodman Brown has just dreamt this meeting with this old man that appears to be the devil.

Work Cited

Liebman, Sheldon W. "The Reader in 'Young Goodman Brown'." Short Story Criticism, edited by Anna J. Sheets, vol. 29, Gale, 1998. Literature Resource Center, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GLS&sw=w&u=drexel_main&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CH1420014439&it=r&asid=9392377e9cd49e91adb1e7b6c63bc5be. Accessed 6 June 2017. Originally published in The Nathaniel Hawthorne Journal 1975, edited by C. E. Frazer Clark, Jr., Microcard Editions Books, 1975, pp. 156-169.

Paulits, Walter J. "Ambivalence in 'Young Goodman Brown'." Short Story Criticism, edited by Anna J. Sheets, vol. 29, Gale, 1998. Literature Resource Center, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GLS&sw=w&u=drexel_main&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CH1420014432&it=r&asid=a66677a42a5911bfeb4fe7f8b465b1b1. Accessed 6 June 2017. Originally published in American Literature, vol. 41, no. 4, Jan. 1970, pp. 577-584.

Korb, Rena. "An overview of 'Young Goodman Brown,'." Short Stories for Students, Gale, 2002. Literature Resource Center, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GLS&sw=w&u=drexel_main&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CH1420008892&it=r&asid=445d85fad45d574ce3d8bb456c6929a3. Accessed 6 June 2017.