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Sin Illustrated In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

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Perfectly Imperfect What is sin? Sin is an act of wrongdoing that humans commit in their hearts against God. Sin can pertain to murder, lust, lying, jealousy, adultery, pride, or anything that goes against the will of God. During the Puritan times of Salem, Massachusetts, the law of God was the supreme law of the land and every citizen strived to live a perfect and sinless life. They did this while also harshly condemning publicly known sinners to death in trials such as the famous Salem witch trials. Nathaniel Hawthorne, the great-grandson of a magistrate involved in these trials, took an interest in Salem’s Puritan society and implemented their culture in many of his stories. In the short story “Young Goodman Brown”, Hawthorne uses symbolism …show more content…

His faith stays true until he hears voices of many Christian figureheads of Salem, including the Minister, venturing into the forest as well. Naturally, his reaction is of disbelief. Discovering that others are capable of sinning just like him results in Goodman Brown questioning everything as he has come to find that his spiritual idols are capable of sin just like him. The minister even walks by and bestows a blessing upon him and Goodman Brown “shrank from the venerable saint, as if to avoid [a curse]”(Hawthorne 270). This is how many immediately react when a leader is at fault; they want to shun or move away from that person. Society casts judgement on all leaders because they believe that they should be sinless, but that is impossible. Jones puts it this way, “Virtue is all a dream. Evil is the nature of mankind”(Jones). She is saying that humans lie to themselves thinking that others, such as leaders, could be perfect but this is improbable. Hawthorne wants to get the message through that sinning is human nature. Through the Minister he wants to show that even those that humans deem to be “good” or “holy” have that sinful nature too. Those whom lead have their own conflicts with human nature too, therefore one cannot expect any leader to never take a misstep because everyone takes missteps everyday. Hawthorne’s goal in this text is to teach readers that the persecution of sinners that the Puritans were committing in Salem was foolish and irrational because no one is able to be perfect, it is human

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