Hawthorne: Goodman Brown
As his name conveys, Goodman Brown naively believes that his community is sin free, without any malice or evil intent. He cannot concede that in his world both good and bad dwell together. He leaves behind Faith, his aptly named wife, and heads out for a clandestine meeting in the dark of nature, with the gloomiest of trees and a path closing in on itself as he passes. Around him, shadows fall, as if passing "through an unseen multitude." "There may be a devilish Indian behind every tree," he says to himself, glancing fearfully around and adding, "What if the devil himself should be at my very elbow!" He is not sure if what he see is real or the dreams of exhaustion. Soon, he meets a second traveler, looking much older and wiser, despite his attire that is as simple as Goodman Brown's. Whether this is indeed the devil or Brown's imagination come alive remains unknown. Brown tries to resist the enticements of this man
We have been a race of honest men and good Christians, since the days of the martyrs. Hidden in the recesses, he overhears the town's minister and Deacon Gookin, one of his religious mentors, discussing some meeting in the forest that night at which "there is a goodly young woman to be taken into communion. " If this is not enough to break Goodman's idealism, his belief in his spiritual and religious leaders is also destroyed. Welcome, again, my children, to the communion of your race!" and to "Look up to Heaven, and resist the Wicked One!" The next day, life goes on as if nothing ever happened. Thus, although his life continues, begetting children and grandchildren, he dies a man drained of all hope and only with ongoing gloom. Was his trek into the dark side imagined or real--"Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest, and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting?"-Did it matter? His idealism, his dreams and even his Faith are shattered. Now he can only feel dishonesty and distrust of his neighbors and friends, and ministers. consorting with these grave, reputable, and pious people, these elders of the church, these chaste dames and dewy virgins, there were men of dissolute lives and women of spotted fame, wretches given over to all mean and filthy vice, and suspected even of horrid crimes. And shall I be the first of the name of Brown that ever took this path and kept. This man explains to Goodman that he helped his "grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through the streets of Salem. He screams for these sinners to beware of the devil. " He also brought Goodman's father "a pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set fire to an Indian village, in King Philip's War.
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