‘Young Goodman Brown,’ published in 1835, is one of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s most well-known short writings. This narrative is a compelling investigation of the evil side of human nature, inspired in part by the Salem witch hysteria of 1692. Brown has become a symbol of both the Puritan religion and man’s battle between good and evil (Cook 479). Besides this, one of the major topics of the tale was highlighted by McKeithan as Hawthorne’s “favourite one – the sin and its effects” (McKeithan 94). Goodman Brown encounters evil for the first time and is compelled to contemplate the existence of evil in the world that alters his life forever. Within these circumstances, the behavior of Goodman Brown, affected by his encounters, can be considered as obsessive.
A young man called Goodman Brown bids his goodbyes to his wife, Faith, one evening in the small village of Salem, leaving for a shady business enterprise. Faith in the narrative personifies love, both between men and women and between him and God, in terms of love, faith, and loyalty. He abandons his faith in goodness and God by placing Faith at the beginning of history. Goodman Brown says he needs to depart tonight, and Faith asks him to remain with her – “…prithee put off your journey until sunrise. A lone woman is troubled with different dreams” (Hawthorne 2). Goodman Brown bids Faith farewell for the last time, believing to himself that she may have deduced the nefarious motive for his journey, and vows to be a better person after this one night.
Goodman Brown embarks on a perilous expedition through the woods. He examines the area, fearful of what may be hidden behind each tree, whether it be “Indians or the devil himself” (Hawthorne 6). Soon after, he comes across a stranger on the road who welcomes Goodman Brown as if he had been expecting him. Except for the cane he wields with a carved snake, the man is dressed in standard clothing and appears normal. The climax occurs when Goodman Brown is approached by a secret ceremony with many recognizable faces; these were the residents of the city, whom everyone in his church and town regarded with reverence (Tarnóc 73). “There were men of dissolute life and ladies of patchy splendor, miserable, betrayed by all base and vile vices, and even accused of dreadful crimes, flippantly talking with these serious, respected, and religious folks… It was unusual to discover that the virtuous did not fear the wicked and that sinners were indifferent about saints” – recalls Goodman (Hawthorne 15). Most importantly, Faith was one of the new members of a type of dark communion rite.
Goodman Brown comes back to the village the following day, and everyone he sees appears to have been corrupted. He sees the priest bless him and hears the deacon pray, but he rejects the blessing and accuses the deacon of being a magician – “What God doth the wizard pray to?” (Hawthorne 25). When he finally meets Faith at his own home, he refuses to greet her. It is unclear if the encounter in the woods was a dream, but Goodman Brown’s life was forever transformed (Tarnóc 77). He does not trust anybody in the village, and refuses accept the priest’s remarks, and is not actually devoted to his wife. He spends the rest of his life in gloom and dread, with no inscription written on his tombstone.
“Young Goodman Brown” is a metaphor about man’s fall, from which Hawthorne pulls to highlight what he perceives as American religion’s inherent fallibility and hypocrisy. Hawthorne relates the story of a man who is seduced by the devil and succumbs to his curiosity and his faith’s weakness. Goodman Brown, like Eve, cannot help but wonder what lies beneath the forest’s mystery (Yuan-yi 756). And, like Eve, Goodman Brown is rewarded for his inquisitiveness with information that drastically alters his life. The devil informs Goodman Brown and Faith at a ritual in the woods that they will now have their eyes opened to the wickedness of themselves and everyone around them. Goodman Brown returns from the forest to find that he has been deprived of the joys of life (Yuan-yi 757). He began to distrust anyone in his immediate vicinity, even the lady he had previously loved.
The storyline also addresses the frequently blurry border between good and evil, as well as the fight between personal independence and convention. This narrative is noteworthy for its depiction of evil, not least because it raises intriguing concerns about what it means to be or recognize evil. The young Goodman Brown refuses an initiation in a woodland clearing, but the narrative implies that it does not matter because he was still conscious of evil and therefore initiated into its path. As seen by his meeting with an older man wielding a serpentine staff, Goodman Brown is lured to the realm of vice and witchcraft.
Hawthorne makes explicit use of historical references. The Salem Witch Trials in 1692, Quaker Puritan prejudice, and King Philip’s War are three tragic incidents in Puritan history that Hawthorne explicitly mentions. During the Salem Witch trials, Salem residents murdered twenty-five persons who were falsely suspected of being witches (Fitzgerald 27). Puritan intolerance towards Quakers first surfaced in the second part of the seventeenth century, when Puritans began to prohibit Quakers from living in their cities, eventually resorting to incarceration and execution (Fitzgerald 139). In this narrative, the devil refers to Goodman Brown’s grandfather thrashing a Quaker in the streets. From 1675 until 1676, King Philip’s War was a series of minor conflicts between Indians and colonists (Fitzgerald 99). Indians assaulted colonists in western Massachusetts border towns, and colonists retaliated by assaulting Indian villages and slaughtering their inhabitants (Fitzgerald 94). Goodman Brown’s father was given a fiery torch by the Devil, according to Hawthorne, so that he might set fire to the Indian town.
As a result, “Young Goodman Brown” is a very symbolic and evocative novel about symbolizing the shattering effect of an incident on one’s behavior: once the veil is withdrawn, Goodman Brown sees evil everywhere, including where it may and cannot be. Although Hawthorne left some space for interpretation and the narrator himself appears confused, if Goodman Brown was only dreaming of the events of the witches’ sabbath, this raises more issues (Yuan-yi 757). He suspects individuals in positions of authority around him, such as those who teach religion to village children or who diligently pray, of having bad inclinations and executing wicked crimes in secret. However, his belief that the dream was true and everyone, including his wife, was secretly marked with evil can be an author’s indication that extreme puritanism removes a person’s moral compass and leads to a life devoid of joy or meaning.
Works Cited
Cook, Reginald. “The Forest of Goodman Brown’s Night: A Reading of Hawthorne’s” Young Goodman Brown“.” New England Quarterly (1970): 473-481.
Fitzgerald, Monica D. Puritans Behaving Badly: Gender, Punishment, and Religion in Early America. Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Young Goodman Brown.” (1835).
McKeithan, D. M. “Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown: An Interpretation.” Modern Language Notes, vol. 67, no. 2, (1952): 93-96.
Tarnóc, András. “The Reflection of Solitude in Selected Works of American Literature.” Confluente. Texts and Contexts Reloaded, vol. 1, no. 1, (2021): 68-80.
Yuan-yi, Zhou. “The Images of “Scapegoat” in Young Goodman Brown.” Journal of Literature and Art Studies, vol. 11, no. 10, (2021): 755-758.