Many famous works in literature feature references or allusions to the Bible and Christianity. The wife’s dreams in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown allude to Pontius Pilate’s wife’s dreams in the Bible. Pearl’s name in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter alludes to Matthew 13:45-46, the Pearl of Great Price. Lastly, some quotations in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 allude to Jesus walking on water and Jesus’ first miracle of turning water into wine.
As a consequence of Young Goodman Brown’s decision to walk in sin with the devil, he loses faith in his entire world.
Goodman Brown loses his faith when he sees that his leaders are devil worshippers which he believes from being shown by a stranger who is believed to be the devil. One example of this is when Goodman Brown leaves his wife, Faith to begin the journey, he was symbolically leaving his faith in God and entering a forsaken place where the devil lurked. In the story, Goodman Brown expresses when entering the woods “What if the devil himself should be at my very elbow” ( Gardner, Janet E., and Nathaniel Hawthorne). This statement also signifies he left without regard for his faith in God and his fellow human race. However, it is when he exclaims “My faith is gone!”
When Goodman Brown comes to face that Faith is not who he believes her to be, it is “as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn” (Hawthorne 5). As this was going on, Goodman Brown feels intimidated “when the wind laughed at him” (Hawthorne 5). The humanlike characteristics given to nature expresses how Goodman Brown feels about his experience. He witnesses the wickedness that surrounds himself after his faith disappears. When the author mentions that the staff “might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent”, he elevates the staff’s capability to completing such actions (Hawthorne 2).
Goodman Brown leaves the safety of his home in the town to take a journey through the woods this leads into the faith and reason archetype. Faith is the personification of faith and purity, even in her own name. Goodman Brown’s internal conflict in the story is based on whether to “keep the faith.” In the beginning of the story the struggle is literal, Brown’s wife begs him to stay at home and not venture out into the woods. This decision to leave behind Faith is a metaphor for his thoughts about religion, which he similarly abandons at the end of the story.
“Young Goodman Brown” is a tale about a man experiencing evil and having his life changed forever due to the experience. While it is said that this story may simply be a dream, the progression of the events that occur leave the main character changed for life. Using a psychoanalytical approach, it can be proved that that the main character, Goodman Brown, is not who he seems to be and is riddled with dysfunctional behavior. Scholarly Journal Articles by authors Joan Elizabeth Easterly and Patrick W. Shaw can be used to provide evidence that the main character of this story displays behaviors that are not considered to be in good taste by today’s standards. Overall, Goodman Brown is a vessel of dysfunctional behavior and this is portrayed through the use of symbolism, antics, and actions that occur throughout the story.
In Hawthorne's story "Young Goodman Brown" it can be described as a moral allegory that illustrates the puritan doctrine of inherent depravity as the Brown. He tests his faith by entering the forest primeval by joining the man "of grave and decent attire" for an evening in the wilderness. It is apparent the symbols are of a religious nature. Hawthorne wrote in the time period known as the Romantic Period. Hawthorne's rejection of the Puritan belief system is the primary message of this story.
The Twentieth-century philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre had the right idea when he stated that "ownership extends beyond objects to include intangible things as well"; because the foundation of one 's self-identity is also a bridge between the intangible things that one can own and how one perceives those items. When traveling through that journey in life where you are trying to figure out who you are and what that entitles, one must likely thinks and ponders upon their perception of intangible items like faith, love, hope, fear to fully understand themselves. Goodman Brown in the story "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne touched upon the building of ones identity based upon the ideals/morals they believed in when it came to the item of faith. He understood that he was a child of god who had committed sins and so he thought that maybe he deserved to be comrades with the devil and accept the concept of evil into his life. However by the end of the story, Goodman Brown believed in his identity and he knew that he believed in God and had faith so he denied the Devil.
Sin is inevitable. Every person sins, one way or another. Sinning is impossible to avoid even with “practice.” “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne shows readers that. Goodman Brown wants to believe he is a good man, and perhaps he is; but he is tempted by sin all the same.
Goodman Brown loses his faith in his humanity when evil prevails itself in many forms, leaving him to speculate the behavior and beliefs of everyone encircles around him. This story also contains similar Biblical characteristics of the sinful nature in man. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbolism to define that wickedness exist in all humanity and nothing is the way it seems. The story begins with Goodman Brown and his wife named Faith bartering a goodbye kiss.
During the process of growing up, people are often discouraged by the human race when they realize that many of the most respected leaders in society often have a dual personality. When I was a teenager, one of my best friend’s father was a religious leader. To his followers, he presented himself as a devout husband and father. But, as I was exposed to his life at home I came to realize that he struggled with infidelity. “Young Goodman Brown” is the story of a young Puritan man questioning the validity of the inherent goodness of the people he respects.
David Lynch Says, “Stories hold conflict and contrast, highs and lows, life and death, and the human struggle and all kinds of things.” This means that story plots may contain joy or sorrow within. The two short stories “Young Goodman Brown,” written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in the 1835 and “Where are You Going, How Have You Been” was written by Joyce Carol Oates in 1966 are no exception from the malevolent plots. “Young Goodman Brown” is about Goodman Brown who leaves his wife, Faith for three months on a trip through the forest. Later, he stumbles upon clearing in which a ceremony is held for the newest acolytes, himself and his wife, Faith.
Young Goodman Brown believes that he lives in the most perfect world where all is good, and no evil exists. Although, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” tells a twisted story of a newlywed learning of all the evil that is in this world. In the end, the narrative reveals that many people give in to temptation and sin. In this case, the devil himself persuades town members into sinning against their beliefs, and eventually Young Goodman Brown himself. Hawthorne puts an unusual twist on the beliefs of Puritans showing that not one human being is as faithful to their religion as they claim to be because of temptation which leads to sin.
Brown reflect this when returning home from the forest and see Faith in which his reaction was “ But Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without greeting” (70). He displays this further by “Often, awaking suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith, and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled, and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away.” (72) because his wife caused him to his loss of faith which he displays by not praying publicly or privately showing faith in
His opening phrase in this scene is, “ “Faith kept me back a while” replied a young man, with tremor in his voice” (406). Although Goodman Brown’s conversation with his wife delayed him, he was referring to his faith in Puritan beliefs. In the beginning, he is uneasy with the idea of darkness and the unknown because that is all he has learned is to stay true to God. His faith is all he has known his whole life and deviating away from that ideal lifestyle is a foreign yet tempting idea. This is evident when he says, “ “Too far!
