Young Goodman Brown is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The story follows Young Goodman Brown as he leaves his home and wife, Faith, to venture into the woods. There, he meets with a stranger who leads him on a journey that changes his life forever. Young Goodman Brown learns that evil is present in everyone, even those closest to him, and that it is something that cannot be avoided. This experience causes him to lose his faith in humanity and live the rest of his life in fear and suspicion.
“Young Goodman Brown” is a theological tale set in perversion of a religious leader. In “Young Goodman Brown,” Goodman Brown is a Puritan minister who allows his overweening pride to interfere with his ties to the community after he encounters the devil, and he becomes an exile in his own town as a result.
Allegory is defined as a figure of speech in which characters, objects, and events have symbolic meaning. In “Young Goodman Brown”, Hawthorne uses allegory to symbolize the fall of man. Young Goodman Brown represents the everyman who is tempted by evil. The devil tempts Goodman Brown with the offer of knowledge and power, but ultimately leads him to his downfall.
The forest represents the wilderness of sin, and Goodman Brown’s journey into the forest is a journey into temptation. Hawthorne uses light and dark imagery to represent good and evil. Light represents purity and goodness, while dark represents sin and evil. When Goodman Brown enters the forest, he leaves the light of day behind and enters into darkness. This symbolizes his fall from grace.
Goodman Brown’s wife, Faith, is a symbol of innocence. She represents the part of Goodman Brown that is still good and pure. When Goodman Brown sees her pink ribbon in the devil’s staff, it symbolizes the loss of her innocence. The pink ribbon also symbolizes the blood of Christ, which was shed for our sins.
Hawthorne uses the character of Young Goodman Brown to explored the theme of the loss of innocence. Goodman Brown starts out as a good and innocent man, but he is tempted by evil and becomes corrupted. He loses his faith in God and in humanity, and lives the rest of his life as an outsider in his own community.”
“This one night,” says Goodman Brown to his “love and (my) Faith,” I must stay away from you. He is speaking to his wife while calling her “Faith.” He is leaving his unquestionable faith in God with her by going into the woods to meet the Devil. He decides that he will “cling to her skirts and follow her to Heaven,”
As Goodman Brown enters the woods, he meets an old man who looks suspiciously like the Devil. The old man tells Goodman Brown that he is going “into the forest” to meet with “Goody Cloyse”, a former catechism teacher of his. Goodman Brown is surprised that such a pious woman would be consorting with the Devil, but he goes along with the old man anyway.
Further into the woods, they meet Goody Cloyse herself. She is carrying a broom and muttering to herself. Goodman Brown is shocked to see her there and asks what she is doing in the forest at night. She replies that she has been out looking for her lost spectacles. The old man then tells Goodman Brown to leave her be and not to “judge (her) harshly.”
As they continue on, the old man asks Goodman Brown why he is venturing into the woods. Goodman Brown replies that he is going to meet with a minister who is preaching in the forest that night. The old man says that he has met this minister before and that he is “a good man, (but) prone to wander.”
Finally, they come to a clearing in the woods where there is a fire burning and people milling about. Goodman Brown recognizes some of the people as members of his own community who he thought were pious Christians. He is shocked to see them there and wonders if he has been deceived all along.
The old man tells Goodman Brown that he must now choose between good and evil. He says that if Goodman Brown decides to stay with the people in the clearing, he will be one of them forever. If he decides to leave, he will never see them again.
Goodman Brown is torn but finally decides to leave. As he does so, he hears the sound of his wife’s voice calling out to him. He looks back and sees her standing in the clearing with the other people. She beckons to him, but he turns away and runs out of the forest.
When Goodman Brown returns home, he is a changed man. He is no longer the innocent young man he once was. He has seen the evil that exists in the world and it has scared him. He can never again look at the people of his community in the same way. They are all tainted in his eyes.
The experience has also caused him to lose faith in humanity. He can no longer trust anyone because he knows that even the most pious people are capable of evil. This knowledge leads to his downfall, both spiritually and mentally. He becomes a bitter, lonely old man who is unable to find happiness in anything.
Goodman Brown meets the Devil at last, and he explains that he was late because “Faith kept me back for a while.” This remark has two meanings. His wife physically prevented him from meeting with the devil on time, but his faith in God delayed his encounter with the devil psychically.
Young Goodman Brown’s wife, Faith, is the symbol of Young Goodman Brown’s faith in God. Young Goodman Brown believes that if he leaves her behind, he will lose his connection to his religion. However, as the story progresses, Young Goodman Brown starts to believe that he is losing his connection to God because of the things that he sees other people doing.
Young Goodman Brown begins to see that other people are not as pure as he thought they were and that maybe there is no such thing as true purity anymore. This change in Young Goodman Brown’s perspective leads to his downfall because he can no longer see the good in people or the good in himself.
One night, Young Goodman Brown leaves his wife, Faith, at home against her wishes and ventures into the forest. Young Goodman Brown is meeting with a man who he believes to be the Devil. As Young Goodman Brown is waiting for the Devil to arrive, he starts to have second thoughts about going through with the meeting.
Young Goodman Brown begins to think about his wife and how she would feel if she knew what he was doing. Young Goodman Brown’s thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of the Devil. The Devil tells Young Goodman Brown that they must hurry because they have much to do.