Introduction
Even though scars are quite a usual phenomenon and almost every person has them, they are able to produce a strong influence on their lives. Scars are perceived as something dark and negative. Basically, they are just the signs that somewhere in the past, an individual has suffered a certain type of damage that has successfully healed, but there is a noticeable mark remaining. Due to these marks, the people who have the scars or the ones around who can see them are constantly reminded of the damaging event, which means it is never gone completely even though it has happened long ago.
Scars can be of different types – physical and psychological. Physical scars can be found on one’s body, they rarely hurt, but they may look frightening. Psychological scars are those that remain in the individuals’ minds and hearts whenever a traumatic event occurs that has lengthy consequences in the form of posterior fears, pains, worries, and many other types of negative feelings and emotions.
Even when the scars are not visible or hidden well, they continue to produce an effect minimizing the people’s self-confidence, making them worry about the visibility of the scars, and trouble over the social perception since scars are commonly perceived as ‘ugly’; the same goes for the psychological scars, they seem invisible, but they force an individual make certain choices and engage in various behaviors in order to avoid getting harmed the way they did in the past. This paper provides a discussion of the scars of one of the characters from the story called “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne as well as a personal story about my own scars.
The Story of Goodman Brown
In the story “Young Goodman Brown”, Hawthorne raises the complex and ever-present themes of an individual’s biased perception, the social expectations and roles everyone is trying to fit in, and the personal metamorphoses that one may undergo when their worldview is suddenly altered. The main character of the story, Goodman Brown, is a man who lives in the Puritan community in the village of Salem, Massachusetts.
The name of this village has long become a synonym of dark and scary secrets related to disguised witchcraft. This perception originates from the real historical events that took place in the village of Salem back in 1692 when a mass hysteria took over the village as a group of women there admitted being possessed by a demon (Salem Witch Trials, n. d.). Throughout the story, the main character takes a journey that lasts only one night but scars Goodman Brown for the rest of his life.
Prior to the journey, the reader sees Goodman Brown speaking to his wife Faith (it is possible that the author used this female name in order to show how important religion was to the main character). Faith confesses that she is worried for her husband and afraid to stay home alone, she begs him to cancel the journey: “prithee put off your journey until sunrise and sleep in your own bed to-night” (Hawthorne, 1835, p. 5). However, regardless of her requests, the man sticks with his decision.
During the journey, Goodman Brown encounters several characters each of whom shows obvious signs of being connected the devil worshippers, at the same time, all of them are the residents of the Salem village, whom Brown has known for many years as decent people, true believers, and devoted Puritans. The facts they reveal about themselves are extremely shocking for the main character, a deeply religious person who has trusted these people and believed many of these people were just as dedicated to God as himself. Goodman Brown gives out “the cry of grief, rage, and terror” when he realizes that among the voices of the other townspeople, he could recognize that of his wife (Hawthorne, 1835, p. 11).
Finally, having met the devil himself, who told the residents that “Evil is the nature of mankind”, Goodman Brown still continues to fight for his beliefs. The end of the journey is rather symbolic, just like its beginning, as he locates his wife Faith among all the devil worshippers (Hawthorne, 1835, p. 14). Screaming and begging her to “look up to heaven, and resist the wicked one”, Goodman Brown finds himself alone in a quiet, dark forest with the scary vision gone into thin air (Hawthorne, 1835, p. 15). The scars inflicted by one night remain with the man forever as he loses his trust in people, begins to despise his fellow residents, and remains in the city of the devil worshippers isolating himself from the society. One frightening experience disrupts the righteous life of the man turning him into a hateful and broken human being. The wounds caused by the journey might have healed, but the scars remained unbearable to live with.
Personal Story
Just like every adult in the world (and similarly to Goodman Brown) I have the scars of my own. They are of psychological nature and may seem invisible at first glance. However, they are very real to me. Reading the story by Hawthorne, I could relate to the main character and the shocking experience he faced as I went through a similar experience when my husband of six and a half years turned out to be cheating on me.
To a certain extent, discovering this betrayal felt similarly shocking to the experience of Goodman Brown as he found out that his fellow residents and even his wife were devil worshippers. At first, the psychological wound caused by this betrayal made me react just the way Brown did – attempt to isolate myself from the society, and men in particular, in order to avoid getting hurt again. Over time, the wound started to heal, however, I am sure that the scar will remain forever to remind me to be careful and think twice before devoting myself to another partner.
Conclusion
To conclude, most people have scars of certain types. Some are bigger and more noticeable, some are worn with pride and dignity, some are carefully hidden and masked, and some are ignored or overlooked. The story of Goodman Brown described a frame of a typical experience of a betrayed person whose worldview has shifted due to the frightening truth he revealed during his one-night journey. The story of my betrayal has a different context but matches the same scope of reactions and emotions. It is possible that, at some point, I will begin to wear my scar proudly seeing myself as a person who had survived a serious challenge. However, right now, I am still inclined to stay careful and alert when encountering a possibility of a relationship.
References
Hawthorne, N. (1835). Young Goodman Brown. Web.
Salem Witch Trials. (n. d.). Web.