Religion In Everyday Life In Young Goodman Brown, By Nathaniel Hawthorne

Early American life (c late 1600s - early 1800s) was a life mainly lived in fear and quite a bit of uncertainty, due to this, a great deal of the literature reflects the values of these characters from this time period. In this time religion is found in most aspects of everyday life, by incorporating religion into their everyday lives it gave people a sense of protection and stability that wouldn't otherwise be present. The Puritan lifestyle uses religion to control parts of life that typically should not be controlled by religion, like government. “The Salem tragedy… developed from a paradox… Simply, it was this: for good purposes, even high purposes, the people of Salem developed a theocracy, a combine of state and religious power whose function was to keep the community together, and to prevent any kind of disunity that might open it to destruction by material or ideological enemies. It was forged for a necessary purpose and accomplished that purpose” ( Miller 7). The narrator explains how a theocracy, which is based on the idea that some people should be included and some excluded from society because of their religious beliefs and actions, would have horrible outcomes, like the Salem witch-hunts. This is basically the idea that religion, taken to extremes, ends up in tragedy.

Hawthorn puts emphasis on how Goodman Brown seems to be more concerned with how his faith appears to other people than with the fact that he has decided to meet with the devil. This story shows the gradual progression of people moving away from the early American religious ideals. However some would argue that the founders of the U.S. themselves often criticized religion and accepted secular ideals, which reject the mixing of religion and government.