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Young Goodman Brown: The Naive Self Righteous Puritan "Young Goodman Brown," written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, exhibits the underlying personalities of a small Puritan town set in Salem, Massachusetts, home of the Salem Witch Trials. This short story was first published in The New-England Magazine in April of 1835. The protagonist, Goodman Brown, is a quiet "god-fearing" character, who undertakes a journey of discovery that leaves him frustrated and miserable. He learns that the whole town is motivated by evil. Leslie Gregory author of Major Images in Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" believes that "Brown has been led step by step to mistrust all he had believed in"(Gregory1). Symbolism, Irony, and Metaphors are used to uncover the truth of this small community showing that nothing is as it seems. Most people have someone who is very close to them. To Young Goodman Brown has wife faith is just that. She symbolizes Brown's innocent faith in church, his community, and the townspeople. She also symbolizes the innocence concerning the establishment of their marriage. "Brown identifies the shared passion of [his] marriage as the source of his guilt complex"(Newman 343). One fateful night Brown's innocent faith is
On his way to the meeting in the woods, he meets a stranger who says to him "You are late". Newman also states "if Brown listens to the 'bad angel,' he does so of his own free will" (Newman344). He sees his catechism teacher walking along the path and wants to take another path but is compelled to follow her. His wife Faith, "aptly named", pleaded with him not to take his journey but seems to have taken the same journey. When he finally reaches his destination, which is a Satanic Communion, he is puzzled as to why the townspeople are present. "Evil is a necessary part of good" (Newman 345). "Major Images Found in Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown. "Brown is a naive young man who fails to understand the gravity of the step he has taken which is succeeded by a presumably adult determination to resist his own evil impulses" (Gregory 1). There is a faint suggestion that her complicity may be prior to and deeper than Brown's" (Gregory 2). In the story "Young Goodman Brown" the name is used as a metaphor. Brown's visitor symbolizes the devil who is on the path to make sure Brown does not change his mind about the journey.
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