“Young Goodman Brown ” is a short story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne that appears in his collection of stories called “Twice-Told Tales”. The genre of this story can be described as gothic fiction, American Fiction, and adventure fiction (Schoell). The writer starts the story with Young Goodman Brown coming home tired from a journey. Young Goodman Brown then falls into a deep sleep outside his house, but is woken up by an evil-looking man named Old Goodman Brown (Hawthorne). Young Goodman Brown follows Old Goodman to meet with the devil himself in the woods (Hawthorne).
Young Goodman Brown leaves his wife Faith (who, unknown to Young Goodman Brown, has been unfaithful) the evening of their wedding anniversary to meet with the devil in the forest. Faith and Goody Cloyse are secret members of a Satanic coven that Young Goodman Brown was completely unaware of. Young Goodman Brown is greeted by the devil, who reveals himself to Young Goodman Brown and Young Goodman Brown accepts him as an ally.
He returns home a changed man, declaring that all his fellow townspeople are in a secret covenant with the devil. The next morning Young Goodman Brown discovers that there has been no one in the forest at night except for Young Goodman Brown himself. Young Goodman Brown then goes into a deep depression from which he never recovers. Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4th, 1804 in Salem Massachusetts where he lived most of his life. During Nathaniel Hawthorne’s lifetime many things happened such as the Revolutionary War and American colonies gaining independence from Great Britain.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was married to Sophia Peabody in 1842 at the age of 38. Nathaniel Hawthorne died on May 19th, 1864 he was 60 years old when he passed away. Young Goodman Brown is a very well known story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne with Young Goodman Brown being the main character in Young Goodman Brown. Young Goodman Brown travels into the woods to meet his wife Faith who is meeting Satan himself in Young Goodman Browns’s own town.
Young Goodman Brown then returns back home like nothing ever happened and continues living his life while everyone else is venerating Satan or worshipping him which takes place on Sunday morning instead of attending church like they normally would Nathaniel Hawthorn themes may be more evident throughout Young Goodman Brown because Young Goodman Brown is a more supernatural story with Young Goodman Brown being the main character of Young Goodman Brown. Young Goodman Brown travels into the woods to meet his wife Faith who is meeting Satan himself in Young Goodman Browns’s own town.
Young Goodman Brown then returns back home like nothing ever happened and continues living his life while everyone else is venerating Satan or worshipping him which takes place on Sunday morning instead of attending church like they normally would . Young Goodman Brown then starts thinking that maybe what he experienced last night was just all just a dream but when Young Goodman Brown wakes up it shows that no one has been in Young Goodman Browns’s cabin since he went out for the evening.
Nathaniel Hawthorne uses theme different sources to portray how Young Goodman Brown changes drastically after Young Goodman Brown goes into the forest to meet with his wife Faith. Young Goodman Brown starts having dreams that Young Goodman Browns’s fellow townsfolk are all in a covenant with Satan himself and Young Goodman Brown then wakes up and realizes it was not a dream and that everyone is actually sending Young Goodman Brown evil stares and Young Goodman Brown then questions what he should do next.
Nathaniel Hawthorne uses theme to portray how Young Goodman Brown changes drastically after Young Goodman Brown goes into the forest to meet with his wife Faith. Nathaniel Hawthorn uses many different themes such as appearance, authority, journey/journey motif, nature, religion, silence, social order (power) and supernatural to convey what Young Goodman Browne sees at night. Young Goodman Brown feels as if Young Goodman Browne he has been taken over by some outside force Young Goodman Brown feels as though Young Goodman Browne no one is good within Young Goodman Browns’s own town except for Young Goodman Browne himself.
Nathaniel Hawthorn uses theme to convey that Young Goodman Brown then starts feeling down about him thinking that everyone around Young Goodman Brown is evil even though he can remember back when Young Goodman Brown was younger and had feelings for the people of his town. Nathaniel Hawthorne used many different themes to portray how Young Goodman Brown changes drastically after Young Goodman Brown goes into the forest to meet with his wife Faith including appearance, authority, journey/journey motif, nature, religion, silence, social order (power) and supernatural.
Young Goodman Brown’s wife Faith has gone missing, and Young Goodman starts to wonder if she was taken away by the devil because he knew about Young Goodman following him; however, Young Goodman soon realizes that it was not that simple when Young Goodman meets with Faith, who claims that Young Goodman has been working for the witches this whole time (Schoell). The writer uses many literary devices in this story in order to portray the theme of betrayal in Young Goodman Brown. Young Goodman is the main character in this story, and his experiences are what make up Young Goodman’s view of the world (Hawthorne).
Young Goodman’s inner thoughts on certain events are what Young Goodman himself believes to be true. Young Goodman feels that he can no longer trust anyone once he figures out that everyone was working with the devil all along, including his wife Faith. Even Young Goodman himself was tricked into joining the witches by not knowing that it was really Young Goodman following Old Goodman into the woods all along (Hawthorne). ” Young Goodman Brown ” has a theme of betrayal which Young Goodman learns as he goes further into the story itself.
As noted before, Young Goodman believes that everything Young Goodman thought Young Goodman knew was not true at all. Young Goodman’s thoughts start to change after Young Goodman meets with Old Man Brown in the forest, and Young Goodman believes that Young Goodman is being tricked by Young Goodman’s wife Faith (Hawthorne). Once Young Goodman finds out that everyone is working with the devil, Young Goodman loses faith in his friends and the people around him. The writer shows this theme of betrayal by having Young Goodman believe that everything Young Goodman knew up until this point was actually false, or untrue.
There are many quotes from “Young Goodman Brown” which express betrayal as one of its main themes. One quote which shows Young Goodman starting to lose faith can be found on page 68, Young Goodman Brown says, “Another, and another pang gripped his heart. Were all those ties…were they all to be broken? ” Young Goodman believes that Young Goodman is now losing faith in everything Young Goodman has known up until then, meaning Young Goodman does not know what the truth really is anymore (Hawthorne).
