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Integrity In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

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Integrity is the foundation of keeping a person’s life intact. Without integrity, people would have a hard time sticking to their morals. In the short story Young Goodman Brown, Nathaniel Hawthorn gives symbolic examples as to why following morals is crucial. He expresses this with vivid imagery and the ideas of what the world means to him. Goodman Brown is a man that struggles with his religion and faith. Curiosity led him to create a weakness for temptation and changed his views on people. Leading forward, this greatly impacted his everyday life leading him to regret. Hawthorne uses symbolism and imagery to demonstrate how life can fall apart if people do not stick to their beliefs and morals.
Goodman Brown’s wife, Faith, is a symbol for …show more content…

Faith wears these ribbons to symbolize how joyful and upbeat her life is before Goodman Brown leaves his house. While Goodman Brown is walking around the village observing everyone he “[Turned] the corner by the meeting-house, he spied the head of Faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at sight of him, that she skipt along the street, and almost kissed her husband before the whole village.” (Hawthorne 9) Faith shows excitement towards something so small like the sight of her husband with Hawthorne making sure the reader knows she is wearing the pink ribbons so they can see they symbolize joy and innocence. However, the pink ribbons are not only seen with Faith. When Goodman Brown is in the forest doubting people’s goodness, he sees the pink ribbons fluttering down from the sky. While Goodman Brown is experiencing troubles in the forest,“... 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.” (Hawthorne 6) The ribbon falling down from the sky is to symbolize that Faith has fallen into the realm of the devil and she has lost her innocence and joy as opposed to when she is wearing the ribbons. As the ribbons fall, Goodman Brown realizes that faith has become lost in the hands of the devil and that there is no turning back. No matter how good a person or thing is, they can always fall to the devil’s

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Web. 2 May. 2012. The research of “Young Goodman Brown,” explains the various images found in Young Goodman Brown. Some of them clarifies the author criticisms are the Salem Village, the pink ribbons on Faith’s hat, the fellow traveler, the staff, and using of the term “faith”, and the forest.

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Once Young Goodman Brown is in the woods, he comes across his innocent Faith’s symbolic ribbon of innocence, it “fluttered down, through the air and caught on a branch of a tree. A young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon. ‘My Faith is gone! There is no good on Earth!’” is Goodman’s last call out to his dear Faith as he realizes that there truly cannot be a person that is so pure on this cruel earth, As for Connie, she yells out at Arnold “Shut up!

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Hawthorne says, “Something fluttered lightly down through the air and caught on the branch of a tree” Faith’s pink ribbons symbolize purity. In the beginning of the story was Faith had her ribbons she was pure but at the end of the story when Young Goodman Brown saw Faith’s pink ribbon come down from the sky it represents how she succumed to evil and Hawthorne lost both his faith and his wife Faith. The third example of how Hawthorne uses symbolism to show the theme good versus evil in the story “Young Goodman Brown” is when the devil is telling Brown and Faith that they will have a new perspective of life, a life where everyone sins. In the beginning of the story Young Goodman Brown saw his family as godly and he saw Faith as pure but the devil shows him that his views are naive and the devil gives him the capability to see the dark side of everything and everyone.

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Pink ribbons are used to symbolize innocence in the real world, and how they are represented throughout the story. The wife of Goodman Brown wears these pink ribbons, in order to represent purity. Brown loses them when he notices faith joining the “devil.” “Cries out to Faith to resist this evil.” (Gale).

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This talk of devilish acts from people known to Goodman Brown as holier than all causes Goodman Brown great pain and confusion even to the point where he was “ready to sink down on the ground, faint and overburdened” from what he had just witnessed (5). In the short time from when Goodman Brown enters the forest, sees Goody Cloyse, and sees the minister and the deacon, his entire life and upbringing is

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As he embarks on his journey into the forest, he begins to question the faith and goodness of those around him, and his own beliefs and values are challenged. The conflict that he faces throughout the story enables his character development, as it challenges his beliefs and values, leading to his eventual transformation. “Young Goodman Brown caught hold of a tree for support, being ready to sink on the ground, faint and overburdened with the heavy sickness of his heart. He looked up to the sky, doubting whether there was a heaven above him” (Hawthorne, 589). Here, he has begun to realize that his love for Faith, and the hope and faith he has in her won’t be enough for him to go to heaven because of his sins.

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Coincidentally enough, not only does Goodman Brown struggle to hold on to his wife but his Christian faith as well while traveling the streets of a Salem village. The author mentions Faith’s pink ribbon in her cap throughout the story instilling her character with joy. Pink ribbons symbolize

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Goodman Brown's wife, Faith, wears pink ribbons to show how she has not been touched by temptation and evil. Faith's pink ribbons can be seen to reflect her youth and beauty. On a deeper level,

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The young man seized it, and behind a pink ribbon” (392). Further into the story the pink ribbons come back from faith’s hat and it has appeared in the woods this can be seen as a sign that faith has been captured by the devil and no longer practices the Christian faith. Faith can also be seen as a symbol of Goodman’s faith and beliefs. Faith has a lot of meaning in this short story because she’s seen as Goodman Brown’s wife but also his religious side of his life and I think choosing her name to be Faith was

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To him, his young wife represents all that is good in mankind and the author adorns Faith with pink ribbons to symbolize her innocence and goodness. For example, when Faith tries to get Goodman Brown to remain at home instead of going on a mysterious nighttime journey into the deep dark woods, she “thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap” (Hawthorne, 1). Not only does the vision of his new pretty wife call out to Goodman Brown not to stray, but also her pink ribbons are further meant to prompt the young husband not to leave righteousness behind. When Goodman Brown sees Faith’s beribboned head as he walks away, he says, “she’s a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night, I’ll cling to her skirts to follow her to heaven” (Hawthorne, 1). Unable to withstand the lure of an illicit meeting in an evil forest, he ultimately plans to rely on the godliness of his wife, to ground him and keep him on a moral path.

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Secondly, Faith’s pink bow is symbolic because the color pink is generally associated with innocence or purity. At the beginning of the story, Hawthorne mentions Faith’s ribbon multiple time expressing the fact that Faith is youthful and happy. Later, he reintroduces Faith’s ribbons when Young Goodman Brown is in the forest struggling with his doubts about the

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