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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.

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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.

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The Symbolism of ‘Young Goodman Brown’ Explained

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Young Goodman Brown’ is an 1835 short story by the American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Inspired in part by the Salem witch craze of 1692, the story contains a number of powerful symbols. But how should we analyse the symbolism of the story?

Let’s take a closer look at the most important symbols in ‘Young Goodman Brown’. But first, a brief reminder of the story’s plot:

In the village of Salem, a young man named Goodman Brown leaves home one night to honour his promise to meet with a man, although he experiences misgivings about keeping the appointment. After meeting a number of his fellow villagers as he journeys through the woods, Goodman Brown eventually comes to a clearing where a witches’ sabbath is taking place. Among the sabbath is his own wife, Faith.

The next morning, he sees the same villagers he had witnessed the night before, but now they are carrying on with their ordinary, upstanding lives. Goodman Brown becomes withdrawn from the community, and even starts to doubt whether what he witnessed actually took place, or whether it was all a dream.

Symbolism of Thresholds.

‘Young Goodman Brown’ begins with Goodman Brown setting forth from his home but pausing, ‘after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his young wife.’ This casual reference to the threshold of the Browns’ household ushers in a number of liminal spaces and times in the story: it is ‘sunset’ (the threshold between day and night) when Brown leaves home, and what he experiences in the liminal space of the wood is, in many ways, a troubling of the boundary between dream and reality.

Pink Hair Ribbons.

Faith’s pink hair ribbons suggest her innocence. When we first meet her at home, she is allowing the wind to play with her pink ribbons: a symbol of carefree youth and playfulness, or a sign that she is wayward and prone to being manipulated? Later, when her husband sees one of her pink ribbons in the wood, he exclaims, ‘My Faith is gone!’: a phrase which obviously carries a double meaning here. After this moment, the (lost) pink ribbon symbolises Faith’s lost innocence.

Snake Symbolism.

Early on in the story, when Goodman Brown meets the old man carrying a staff, Hawthorne gives us a clue that all is not all as it seems:

But the only thing about him that could be fixed upon as remarkable was his staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent. This, of course, must have been an ocular deception, assisted by the uncertain light.

Snakes have a longstanding association with deceit, temptation, and evil: it was the serpent in the Garden of Eden which tempted Adam and Eve to eat of the Forbidden Fruit, thus bringing about the Fall of Man. According to a later tradition (the Bible never actually mentions this detail), the serpent was Satan in disguise, and of course, when Goody Cloyse recognises the old man, she identifies him as ‘the Devil’ himself.

This passage also gives us one of the first clues that the story’s details are ambiguous. Is the appearance of the staff as a ‘living serpent’ really just a trick of the eye or ‘ocular deception’? Or is there something truly supernatural going on? Or is this an early sign that Young Goodman Brown’s mind is unsound and he is ‘seeing things’?

The Old Man.

Note that the old man whom Goody Cloyse later claims is ‘the Devil’ is ‘about fifty years old, apparently in the same rank of life as Goodman Brown, and bearing a considerable resemblance to him, though perhaps more in expression than features.’

Is this old man a foreshadowing of what Old Goodman Brown will be like? It is notable that the two men’s faces bear a similar expression: perhaps the mark that evil leaves upon the face.

Symbolism of Salem.

The historic town of Salem in Massachusetts is synonymous with witchcraft, because of the notorious Salem witch trials which took place there in 1692-93. They are called ‘witch trials’ but really the event was a form of mass hysteria which saw neighbour turn upon neighbour, and the authorities of Salem indulge the hearsay of a group of teenagers.

During this short period of hysteria, 141 people were arrested and 19 were hanged; another was crushed to death. Hawthorne’s story taps into the air of superstition but also religious hypocrisy surrounding seventeenth-century Salem. This was a culture Hawthorne knew well, and one of his ancestors, John Hathorne, was even involved in the witch trials at Salem.

One can allow evil to taint one’s soul by purporting to stand against it: many people, including those involved in the Salem trials, have committed terrible acts against other human beings but have considered themselves ‘good’ people because they are convinced they have right on their side.

Symbolism of Character Names.

Many of the names in the story are charged with symbolism, too. ‘Goodman’ was a polite term of address in Puritan New England, and served the same function as ‘Mister’. But of course, in a story which is about the nature of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, Brown’s epithet takes on an added significance. Is he a ‘good man’ for resisting the witches’ sabbath, or has he still allowed himself to become corrupted by evil so that it will destroy the rest of his and his wife’s lives together?

Calling Goodman Brown’s wife ‘Faith’ is an inspired touch, because this was a popular woman’s name among Puritans, but it resonates with obviously symbolic significance in this story about faith and sin. When Goodman Brown exclaims, ‘My Faith is gone!’, the symbolism of Brown’s wife’s name becomes more manifest.

‘Young Goodman Brown’ as Allegory.

For these reasons, Hawthorne’s story is often interpreted as an allegory about religious faith. Brown symbolically as well as literally leaves his ‘Faith’ behind when he ignores his wife’s entreaties and leaves home for the night to go into the dark, mysterious wood.

When he renounces his ‘faith’ in this way, he makes himself susceptible to the powerful lure of evil, and even though he may rediscover his ‘Faith’ later on, it has been changed – and tainted – forever.

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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…

Study Like a Boss

Allegory in Young Goodman Brown

An allegory is a work of fiction where all the elements are subservient to a single theme by designating them as symbols of abstract concepts in order to portray that theme. The interaction between these symbols creates an explicit statement on human nature or human relationships, usually in moral, religious, or political terms. In “Young Goodman Brown”, Nathaniel Hawthorne creates an allegory that encompasses the whole of this definition. The most obvious example of Hawthorne’s designation of characters into symbols for the portrayal of the theme is in the ames of the story’s characters: Young Goodman Brown, Faith, Goody Cloyse.

The names are either ironic, with Goody Cloyse turning out to be a witch, or literal, with Faith blatently representing faith(Hawthorne 1991, 50). So when Young Goodman Brown speaks of his wife as “Poor little Faith” by which he’ll rise to heaven by clinging to her skirts(Hawthorne 1991, 51), the author is revealing the nature of Goodman Brown’s own faith: fragile and distinct from his own self. The appearance of characters are also acts of symbolism for telling the allegory. Goodman Brown’s companion is identified as the Devil by his walking staff, carved in the form of a snake.

Martha Carrier, the consort of the Devil, is said to be a “rampant hag”(Hawthorne 1991, 57). Deacon Goodkin and the minister ride on horseback denoting their higher social standing, and their conversation reveals to Goodman Brown that evil has infected the highest reaches of power everywhere in New England. And it is no coincidence that the Devil takes the form of Goodman Brown’s grandfather, for it is the Devil that describes how he elped the Brown’s to commit acts of intolerance and genocide against Quakers and Indians. The sins of the fathers, symbolized in the Devil’s appearance, come to disillusion Young Goodman Brown.

Even material objects take on symbolic life. The Devil keeps asking Goodman Brown to take his staff to aid in his walking. And when Goodman Brown does take a maple stick that the Devil fashioned for him, it speeds him down the forest path, bringing him into such a frenzy that “there could be nothing more frightful than the figure of Goodman Brown” in his righteous fury(Hawthorne 1991, 55). Time is also symbolized. Young Goodman Brown journeys out at sunset, representing the end of his youth and the coming gloom of his “maturity”.

The symbolism most important to the allegory in “Young Goodman Brown” is that of the natural world . The sky symbolizes “heaven above” to Goodman Brown, and with its darkening by the cloud of “a confused and doubtful sound of voices”, Goodman Brown feels all hope in faith lost. The wind likewise takes on symbolic life in laughing in scorn at Goodman Brown’s indignation by its “frightful sounds- the creaking of trees, the howling of wild easts, and the yell of Indians”(Hawthorne 1991, 55). However, the most significant symbolism of the natural world is in how Hawthorne characterizes the forest.

The setting for “Young Goodman Brown” is around the early eighteenth century, during the Age of Reason, when nature was looked upon as corrupt and vulgar, something to be held subservient to logic. However, during the time of Hawthorne, the Age of Romanticism, nature had come to be see as pure and noble. Hawthorne portrays nature from the viewpoint of the Age of Reason, but the irony of the story is Romantic: Young Goodman Brown’s downfall lies not in the truth that human nature, symbolized in the natural world, is inherently evil , but in that he takes this to be true.

To demonstrate this irony, Hawthorne takes the traditional Puritan view of the untamed New England forest. To them, the forest was not simply a physical wilderness but also a wilderness of the soul: full of darkness, wild beasts, and “a devilish Indian behind every tree”(Hawthorne 1991, 51). To the Puritans, the wilderness was a savage place, that by conquering it and its inhabitants, they had symbolically conquered human nature and ecome more divine. Hawthorne takes this myth and turns it upside down: by seeking to conquer nature, by seeing it as purely evil , Goodman Brown becomes less human.

In the story, the forest is symbolized as a dark mirror image of Goodman Brown’s Salem village. The pious villagers that he has known in Salem become minions of the Devil in the forest, meeting in congregation for a black mass held in a naturally- formed chapel: “At one extremity of an open space, hemmed in by the dark wall of the forest, arose a rock, bearing some rude, natural resemblance either to an altar or a pulpit, and urrounded by four blazing pines, their tops aflame, their stems untouched, like candles at an evening meeting”(Hawthorne 1991, 56).

By mingling with “the roaring wind, the rushing streams, the howling beasts, and every other voice of the unconcerted wilderness”, the people of the village pay homage to the Devil(Hawthorne 1991, 57). Here, the villagers are told by the Devil to look upon each other and reveal their true character . So the forest, for its chaotic, dark aspect which eludes logic, is symbolized as human nature: “Evil is the nature of mankind”(Hawthorne 1991, 57). This becomes Goodman Brown’s view when he loses Faith, faith in his fellow man.

So, in allegorical terms, in leaving behind his wife Faith to venture out into the forest at sunset, Young Goodman Brown loses his own faith in the goodness of mankind and thus his naive youth, witnesses the dark nature of Man which turns him sour and distrustful of all. As can be seen, everything in the story is subservient to this theme of betrayal of youthful optimism and the resulting descent into matured yet corrupt pessimism. The characters have no real life of their own: they are symbols first and foremost.

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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.

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IvyPanda. (2018, October 19). 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 , 19 Oct. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/importance-of-setting-and-symbolic-characters-in-young-goodman-brown/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'Young Goodman Brown Setting Analysis, Symbolism, & Characters'. 19 October.

IvyPanda . 2018. "Young Goodman Brown Setting Analysis, Symbolism, & Characters." October 19, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/importance-of-setting-and-symbolic-characters-in-young-goodman-brown/.

1. IvyPanda . "Young Goodman Brown Setting Analysis, Symbolism, & Characters." October 19, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/importance-of-setting-and-symbolic-characters-in-young-goodman-brown/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Young Goodman Brown Setting Analysis, Symbolism, & Characters." October 19, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/importance-of-setting-and-symbolic-characters-in-young-goodman-brown/.

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

Symbolism in Young Goodman Brown

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Published: Mar 19, 2024

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

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