An Examination of "Young Goodman Brown"
Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" is set sometime in the late seventeenth century. The main character (Goodman Brown) is a young man, who has been married only three months. He prepares to leave his home in Salem, Massachusetts, and his pretty, young bride Faith to go into the forest and spend the night on some mission that he will not disclose other than to say that it must be performed between sunset and sunrise. Why is Faith so afraid of her husband taking this journey, that she pleads: "prithee put off your journey until sunrise, and sleep in your own bed to-night" (80). But to Goodman Brown, this journey is one that will not only test his Christianity, but also his Faith. The rising action begins when Goodman Brown, having left the village, enters the dark and gloomy forest. Even though Goodman Brown is convinced that he must undertake this journey, he shows his fear in his comments to himself: "There may be a devilish Indian behind every tree. What if
It is not until the mention and description of the second traveller's staff does the reader get the feeling that there might be something sinister, or perhaps evil, about this person. Was this second traveller Goodman Brown as an older man, or could it have been his dead father as suggested in the passage "As nearly as could be discerned, the second traveller was about fifty years old, [. For something that could have been as simple as a dream, he turned his journey into a lifetime of grief, despair, and a destruction of his faith. Are these the ramblings of a coward or does Goodman Brown actually have something to fear? The introduction to the other travller is very interesting. ] Still they might have been taken for father and son" (81). Seeing the people that he admired or who had the biggest influence on his life participating in this most unholy of ceremonies was more than he could bear, having the dark figure speak unto them, "Welcome, my children to the communion of your race" (88). A question to be asked is, at this point in the journey does Goodman Brown know that his "fellow-traveller" (81) is the Devil? If so, then why would a supposed good Christian such as Goodman Brown call him "Friend" (81) as he does at the beginning of their journey? Also when he leaves the path to walk in the woods so Goody Cloyse will not see him, he tells the traveler "But with your leave, friend" (83), and again, when he sits down on the tree stump and refuses to go further, he says, "Friend, my mind is made up" (84). He is even uncertain of his Faith, as he knows not whether Faith obeyed when he cried, "look up to heaven, and resist the wicked one" (89). It could also be said that Goodman Brown was a prisoner of his own convictions. Everything that Goodman Brown thought was good in his life is shattered in that meeting place deep in the woods. How could Goodman Brown see anything but evil in everyone after the people who once inspired him are now trying to turn his Faith. He could not have "shrank from the bosom of Faith [and] turned away" (89-90) too far, because before the end of his life, he had "children and grandchildren" (90).
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