Puritan Elements in Young Goodman Brown
In an article on this short story, literary critic D. J. Moores quotes Alexander Solzhenitsyn as saying, "'If only it were so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being'" (Moores 4). This is the central idea in "Young Goodman Brown" - all people have evil in them, and Goodman Brown discovers this the hard way on his trip though the forest with the Devil. He sees some of the most pious and respected townspeople engaging in Devil worship, and he cannot contend with the thought that they could possibly have evil inside them. Hawthorne writes, "'That old woman taught me my catechism!' said the young man; and there was a world of meaning in this simple comment" (Hawthorne 65). The main theme of this story is this good and evil that lives within us all. It is Goodman Brown's Puritan morals and beliefs that do not allow him to accept this, or forgive it, in himself or those around him.Throughout the story, Hawthorne blends many elements of Puritan society and belief to create an aura of faith and faithlessness, or good and evil.
In conclusion, "Young Goodman Brown" is a classic tale of good versus evil. This again indicates the evil that lives inside him that he cannot acknowledge. Another critic, Derek Maus, notes the Puritan symbolism of these remarks. Hawthorne writes, "On the Sabbath-day, when the congregation were singing a holy psalm, he could not listen, because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear, and drowned all the blessed strain" (Hawthorne 73). His life was wasted on the fight between good and evil, and essentially evil won, because he could not accept there is evil in all humankind. He writes, "The explicit association of Indians with devils serves to situate the story within the moral framework of the Puritan past (in which outsiders of all kinds--the non-elect masses, Indians, witches, Catholics--are allied with the devil by definition, since only the divinely chosen are offered God's grace)" (Maus 76). He cannot accept the existence of evil, and so, he turns against everyone, even if his experience in the woods was just a ghastly dream. For example, the story is set in Salem, Massachusetts, the notorious setting of the Salem witch trials where numerous men and women were condemned as witches and sentenced to death by Puritan judges. Another Puritan belief is the search for self-awareness, and Hawthorne shows this in the story. Young Goodman Brown turns his back on his faith and the people around him because of his experiences in the forest. Goodman sees that evil can live in even the most pious people, and he allows this knowledge to ruin the rest of his life. Hawthorne concludes about Goodman's death, "[T]hey carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone; for his dying hour was gloom (Hawthorne 73). Hawthorne uses this symbolism to indicate the rigidity of Puritan beliefs, and how they rejected all others in their search for piousness. He dies a bitter and broken man, which shows the very real influence evil (or perceived evil), can have on anyone. He becomes a sad and desperate old man who cannot love or trust again.
Common topics in this essay:
Goodman Brown,
Derek Maus,
Richard Barna,
Alexander Solzhenitsyn,
Brown's Puritan,
Salem Massachusetts,
Calvinist Puritanism,
,
Devil Indians,
goodman brown,
Critic Moores,
evil goodman,
critic moores,
hawthorne writes,
evil lives,
hawthorne 73,
evil goodman brown,
|
Acceptance Essays
