Young Goodman Brown Narrative Essay, Research Paper

"Young Goodman Brown", by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a story that is

thick with allegory. "Young Goodman Brown" is a moral story which is

told through the perversion of a religious leader. In "Young Goodman

Brown", Goodman Brown is a Puritan minister who lets his excessive pride in

himself interfere with his relations with the community after he meets with the

devil, and causes him to live the life of an exile in his own community.

"Young Goodman Brown" begins when Faith, Brown’s wife, asks him not to

go on an "errand". Goodman Brown says to his "love and (my)

Faith" that "this one night I must tarry away from thee." When he

says his "love" and his "Faith", he is talking to his wife,

but he is also talking to his "faith" to God. He is venturing into the

woods to meet with the Devil, and by doing so, he leaves his unquestionable

faith in God with his wife. He resolves that he will "cling to her skirts

and follow her to Heaven." This is an example of the excessive pride

because he feels that he can sin and meet with the Devil because of this promise

that he made to himself. There is a tremendous irony to this promise because

when Goodman Brown comes back at dawn; he can no longer look at his wife with

the same faith he had before. When Goodman Brown finally meets with the Devil,

he declares that the reason he was late was because "Faith kept me back

awhile." This statement has a double meaning because his wife physically

prevented him from being on time for his meeting with the devil, but his faith

to God psychologically delayed his meeting with the devil. The Devil had with

him a staff that "bore the likeness of a great black snake". The staff

which looked like a snake is a reference to the snake in the story of Adam and

Eve. The snake led Adam and Eve to their destruction by leading them to the Tree

of Knowledge. The Adam and Eve story is similar to Goodman Brown in that they

are both seeking unfathomable amounts of knowledge. Once Adam and Eve ate from

the Tree of Knowledge they were expelled from their paradise. The Devil’s staff

eventually leads Goodman Brown to the Devil’s ceremony which destroys Goodman

Brown’s faith in his fellow man, therefore expelling him from his utopia.

Goodman Brown almost immediately declares that he kept his meeting with the

Devil and no longer wishes to continue on his errand with the Devil. He says

that he comes from a "race of honest men and good Christians" and that

his father had never gone on this errand and nor will he. The Devil is quick to

point out however that he was with his father and grandfather when they were

flogging a woman or burning an Indian village, respectively. These acts are

ironic in that they were bad deeds done in the name of good, and it shows that

he does not come from "good Christians." When Goodman Brown’s first

excuse not to carry on with the errand proves to be unconvincing, he says he

can’t go because of his wife, "Faith". And because of her, he can not

carry out the errand any further. At this point the Devil agrees with him and

tells him to turn back to prevent that "Faith should come to any harm"

like the old woman in front of them on the path. Ironically, Goodman Brown’s

faith is harmed because the woman on the path is the woman who "taught him

his catechism in youth, and was still his moral and spiritual adviser." The

Devil and the woman talk and afterward, Brown continues to walk on with the

Devil in the disbelief of what he had just witnessed. Ironically, he blames the

woman for consorting with the Devil but his own pride stops him from realizing

that his faults are the same as the woman’s. Brown again decides that he will no

longer to continue on his errand and rationalizes that just because his teacher

was not going to heaven, why should he "quit my dear Faith, and go after

her". At this, the Devil tosses Goodman Brown his staff (which will lead

him out of his Eden) and leaves him. Goodman Brown begins to think to himself

about his situation and his pride in himself begins to build. He "applauds

himself greatly, and thinking with how clear a conscience he should meet his

minister…And what calm sleep would be his…in the arms of Faith!" This

is ironic because at the end of the story, he can not even look Faith in the

eye, let alone sleep in her arms. As Goodman Brown is feeling good about his

strength in resisting the Devil, he hears the voices of the minister and Deacon

Gookin. He overhears their conversation and hears them discuss a "goodly

young woman to be taken in to communion" that evening at that night’s

meeting and fears that it may be his Faith. When Goodman Brown hears this he

becomes weak and falls to the ground. He "begins to doubt whether there

really was a Heaven above him" and this is a key point when Goodman Brown’s

faith begins to wain. Goodman Brown in panic declares that "With Heaven

above, and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the devil!" Again,

Brown makes a promise to keep his faith unto God. Then "a black mass of

cloud" goes in between Brown and the sky as if to block his prayer from

heaven. Brown then hears what he believed to be voices that he has before in the

community. Once Goodman Brown begins to doubt whether this is really what he had

heard or not, the sound comes to him again and this time it is followed by

"one voice, of a young woman". Goodman believes this is Faith and he

yells out her name only to be mimicked by the echoes of the forest, as if his

calls to Faith were falling on deaf ears. A pink ribbon flies through the air

and Goodman grabs it. At this moment, he has lost all faith in the world and

declares that there is "no good on earth." Young Goodman Brown in this

scene is easily manipulated simply by the power of suggestion. The suggestion

that the woman in question is his Faith, and because of this, he easily loses

his faith. Goodman Brown then loses all of his inhibitions and begins to laugh

insanely. He takes hold of the staff which causes him to seem to "fly along

the forest-path". This image alludes to that of Adam and Eve being led out

of the Garden of Eden as is Goodman Brown being led out of his utopia by the

Devil’s snakelike staff. Hawthorne at this point remarks about "the

instinct that guides mortal man to evil". This is a direct statement from

the author that he believes that man’s natural inclination is to lean to evil

than good. Goodman Brown had at this point lost his faith in God, therefore

there was nothing restraining his instincts from moving towards evil because he

had been lead out from his utopian image of society. At this point, Goodman

Brown goes mad and challenges evil. He feels that he will be the downfall of

evil and that he is strong enough to overcome it all. This is another

demonstration of Brown’s excessive pride and arrogance. He believes that he is

better than everyone else in that he alone can destroy evil. Brown then comes

upon the ceremony which is setup like a perverted Puritan temple. The altar was

a rock in the middle of the congregation and there were four trees surrounding

the congregation with their tops ablaze, like candles. A red light rose and fell

over the congregation which cast a veil of evil over the congregation over the

devil worshippers. Brown starts to take notice of the faces that he sees in the

service and he recognizes them all, but he then realizes that he does not see

Faith and "hope came into his heart". This is the first time that the

word "hope" ever comes into the story and it is because this is the

true turning point for Goodman Brown. If Faith was not there, as he had hoped,

he would not have to live alone in his community of heathens, which he does not

realize that he is already apart of. Another way that the hope could be looked

at is that it is all one of "the Christian triptych". (Capps 25) The

third part of the triptych which is never mentioned throughout the story is

charity. If Brown had had "charity" it would have been the

"antidote that would have allowed him to survive without despair the

informed state in which he returned to Salem." (Camps 25) The ceremony then

begins with a a cry to "Bring forth the converts!" Surprisingly

Goodman Brown steps forward. "He had no power to retreat one step, nor to

resist, even in thought…". Goodman Brown at this point seems to be in a

trance and he loses control of his body as he is unconsciously entering this

service of converts to the devil. The leader of the service than addresses the

crowd of converts in a disturbing manner. He informs them that all the members

of the congregation are the righteous, honest, and incorruptible of the

community. The sermon leader then informs the crowd of their leader’s evil deeds

such as attempted murder of the spouse and wife, adultery, and obvious

blasphemy. After his sermon, the leader informs them to look upon each other and

Goodman Brown finds himself face to face with Faith. The leader begins up again

declaring that "Evil is the nature of mankind" and he welcomes the

converts to "communion of your race". (The "communion of your

race" statement reflects to the irony of Brown’s earlier statement that he

comes from "a race of honest men and good Christians.") The leader

than dips his hand in the rock to draw a liquid from it and "to lay the

mark of baptism upon their foreheads". Brown than snaps out from his trance

and yells "Faith! Faith! Look up to Heaven and resist the wicked one!"

At this, the ceremony ends and Brown finds himself alone. He does not know

whether Faith, his wife, had kept her faith, but he finds himself alone which

leads him to believe that he is also alone in his faith. Throughout the story,

Brown lacks emotion as a normal person would have had. The closest Brown comes

to showing an emotion is when "a hanging twig, that had been all on fire,

besprinkled his cheek with the coldest dew." The dew on his cheek

represents a tear that Brown is unable to produce because of his lack of

emotion. Hawthorne shows that Brown has "no compassion for the weaknesses

he sees in others, no remorse for his own sin, and no sorrow for his loss of

faith." (Easterly 339) His lack of remorse and compassion "condemns

him to an anguished life that is spiritually and emotionally dissociated."

(Easterly 341) This scene is an example of how Goodman Brown chose to follow his

head rather than his heart. Had Brown followed his heart, he may have still

lived a good life. If he followed with his heart, he would have been able to

sympathize with the community’s weaknesses, but instead, he listened to his head

and excommunicated himself from the community because he only thought of them as

heathens. "Young Goodman Brown" ends with Brown returning to Salem at

early dawn and looking around like a "bewildered man." He cannot

believe that he is in the same place that he just the night before; because to

him, Salem was no longer home. He felt like an outsider in a world of Devil

worshippers and because his "basic means of order, his religious system, is

absent, the society he was familiar with becomes nightmarish." (Shear 545)

He comes back to the town "projecting his guilt onto those around

him." (Tritt 114) Brown expresses his discomfort with his new surroundings

and his excessive pride when he takes a child away from a blessing given by

Goody Cloyse, his former Catechism teacher, as if he were taking the child

"from the grasp of the fiend himself." His anger towards the community

is exemplified when he sees Faith who is overwhelmed with excitement to see him

and he looks "sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a

greeting." Brown cannot even stand to look at his wife with whom he was at

the convert service with. He feels that even though he was at the Devil’s

service, he is still better than everyone else because of his excessive pride.

Brown feels he can push his own faults on to others and look down at them rather

than look at himself and resolve his own faults with himself. Goodman Brown was

devastated by the discovery that the potential for evil resides in everybody.

The rest of his life is destroyed because of his inability to face this truth

and live with it. The story, which may have been a dream, and not a real life

event, planted the seed of doubt in Brown’s mind which consequently cut him off

from his fellow man and leaves him alone and depressed. His life ends alone and

miserable because he was never able to look at himself and realize that what he

believed were everyone else’s faults were his as well. His excessive pride in

himself led to his isolation from the community. Brown was buried with "no

hopeful verse upon his tombstone; for his dying hour was gloom."

Capps, Jack L. "Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown", Explicator,

Washington D.C., 1982 Spring, 40:3, 25. Easterly, Joan Elizabeth.

"Lachrymal Imagery in Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown", Studies in

Short Fiction, Newberry, S.C., 1991 Summer, 28:3, 339-43. Hawthorne, Nathaniel.

"Young Goodmam Brown", The Story and Its Writer, 4th ed. Ed. Ann

Charters. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, 1995, 595-604. Shear,

Walter. "Cultural Fate and Social Freedom in Three American Short

Stories", Studies in Short Fiction, Newberry, S.C., 1992 Fall, 29:4,

543-549. Tritt, Michael. "Young Goodman Brown and the Psychology of

Projection", Studies in Short Fiction, Newberry, S.C., 1986 Winter, 23:1,

113-117.