Importance of Faith
The Importance of Faith in "Young Goodman Brown" In Nathaniel Hawthorne's tale "Young Goodman Brown," the word faith, used as the name of Goodman Brown's wife, is a good example of a characternym that Hawthorne uses to connect the underlying theme to the plot and the characters in the tale. Faith is introduced at the very beginning of the tale, and Hawthorne foreshadows that the word does indeed give more meaning to the events that will unfold than just a spiritual name for a woman. "And Faith, as the wife was aptly named..." (131). In the first introduction to Goodman Brown's wife, Hawthorne shows that this tale will have a connection to faith, belief, and God. As Goodman Brown leaves his home on journey to meet the devil, Faith pleads with him to stay. He knows, however, that he cannot, and reasons it by telling her that this one night he must leave. He acknowledges what is attempting to hold him back. "My love and my Faith..." (131) is what he is giving reason to for leaving, as if his love is referring to his wife and his Faith, to his secure religious beliefs. This is another foreshadowing that not only wi
The references to his faith have become ones in which the reader no longer takes as literal, but that are interpreted as examples of the internal spiritual conflict that Goodman Brown is enduring. The use and understanding of the term faith in the tale of Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne is significant in order to grasp the true meaning of the events that ensue. Here it is evident that he is deserting his personal religious beliefs of faith, not just his wife, for the night, yet that when he returns, he can cling to his faith more than ever before and his beliefs will prove true and allow him the reward of heaven. Come, devil! for to thee is this world given" (138). After the falling of a pink ribbon, he succumbs to what it is he has been resisting and tells the devil, "My Faith is gone. He is in awe that this woman who so righteously spoke of God and instilled in him his beliefs in faith could be voluntarily attending a meeting led by someone of such contradicting views. At one point in the tale Goodman Brown yells out for "Faith" three times, and receives no response. The devil and Goodman Brown make their journey far into the woods, however, after an encounter with a former catechism teacher who is also on her journey to the sacrilegious meeting, he sits on a tree stump and refuses to continue. ll the tale have a religious theme, but also that the journey that Goodman Brown is embarking on will be one that will somehow question his faith. The woman, who is appropriately named Goody Cloyse, the name of a woman who was sentenced during the actual Salem witch trials, is a representation of evil to Goodman Brown. Even as he begins his journey, he looks back and sees the head of Faith looking out after him, and claims that "after this one night, I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven" (132). He does not see reason to leave his faith, here also referring to his spiritual beliefs, to follow evil.
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