Goodman Brown Gothic

In the town of Salem when the small town was a little too quiet, there was a period of fright and when that occurred there was a lot of human cruelty and power disagreements which happened in both the Salem witch trials and the racial profiling.

This article focuses on the Salem Witchcraft trials, which was in 1962 at the time where young Goodman Brown’s background takes place. The article mentions 2 historians that explain the reasons of what could have caused the trials. Historian number one, Caporael, believes that the reason that caused the girls

The main symbol used by Hawthorne throughout the story is Goodman Brown’s wife, Faith. Faith has a more of a significance in the story than just Brown’s wife, she represents actual faith and purity. There is a conflict going on inside of Brown’s mind and it is if he should “keep the faith” or not. In the beginning, Faith urges Brown to stay home and go in the morning, but he disregards her and keeps going. This is a metaphor for Brown leaving his religious faith. Goodman Brown questions if his wife has lost faith in him and he asks her, ‘“dost thou doubt me already, and we but three months married?”’ Throughout the story, Faith stays as a symbol of Brown’s faith. The devil and Goodman Brown finally meet and the devil questions Brown about being late. Brown being a little afraid responds with, “Faith kept me back awhile,” Faith physically tried to hold Brown back and figuratively talking about his faith in the religion. His wife could have prevented Brown from talking to the devil, but failed. Meeting with the devil evidently shows that Brown is willing to see the evil side of his religion.

"Young Goodman Brown", by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a story of a man named Goodman Brown, who is of strong Puritan belief. Goodman Brown

Another symbol that we see in this story “Young Goodman Brown” is the pink ribbons that faith uses in her cap. “He looked back and saw the head of faith still peeping after him with a melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons” (Hawthorne 137).This seems to symbolize the ribbons as having a sort of positive emotion in this case towards the presence of Goodman Brown. In this story there were quite a few symbols that symbolized important events or ideas through the entire

In addition, the literature uses imagery in that the name Young Goodman Brown is used to indicate the innocence and naivety. On the other hand, the name Goodman is used to illustrate the company of a simple

Young Goodman Brown is a short story where the main purpose is to show the social issue of religion during the Puritan time. Although the author Nathaniel Hawthorne had not being living in that time, he came from a long line of Puritans. He wrote Young Goodman Brown to show the flaws of the Puritans’ view of religion. They made God seem heartless and mean spirited, someone who just used humans for entertainment. The short story Young Goodman Brown demonstrates that people should test their faith of their religious beliefs and even people considered upright can fall short of their own religious faiths from temptations and imperfections. In addition, the story shows that there is some degree of evil nature in everyone because of the freewill

     The story is set in the forest of Salem, Massachusetts, around the time of the witch trials. Goodman Brown is a Puritan, and Salem is a Puritan village

The other setting of the story is Salem Village. Salem Village is historically most famous for the controversial Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials were sparked by the political motives and imaginations of the townspeople. Many Puritans were sentenced to death for suspicion of witchcraft. The Salem Witch Trials also contributed to the taboo feeling of the forest.

     Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes symbolism throughout his short story Young Goodman Brown to impact and clarify the theme of good people sometimes doing bad things. Hawthorne uses a variety of light and dark imagery, names, and people to illustrate irony and different translations. Young Goodman Brown is a story about a man who comes to terms with the reality that people are imperfect and flawed and then dies a bitter death from the enlightenment of his journey through the woods. Images of darkness, symbolic representations of names and people and the journey through the woods all attribute to Hawthorne's theme of good people sometimes doing bad things.

Ronan states Goodman Brown is “both a Hawthorne and a son of Burroughs—“ the holy man” whose hanging is portrayed in “Main-street” as the ultimate symbol of the witch trials’ injustice”( Ronan 279). As Goodman Brown continues to walk with this older man he starts to get nervous say “too far too far!’ exclaimed Goodman, unconsciously resuming his walk” (Hawthorne 388). Although Goodman Brown knows what he is doing is wrong, he continues walking in the woods with the traveler. Goodman Brown states “My father never went into the woods on such an errand, nor his father before him. We have been a race of honest men and good Christians, since the days of the martyrs. And shall I be the first of the name Brown, that ever took this path”(Hawthorne 388). Again, the importance of family history in the role of guilt regarding Puritan values and practices emerges as the traveler enlightens Goodman Brown about his father and grandfather. The traveler states “ I helped your grandfather, the constable [lash a] Quaker women smartly through the streets of Salem...I brought your father a pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set fire to an Indian village, in King Philip’s war” (Hawthorne 388). This is also the first time when the reader sees the traveler as more than a normal man, but the devil.

Darkness, confusion, and terror are some words that come to mind when thinking of the setting in this writing piece. The story has a way of getting the theme across that seems very extreme, partly with its vast use of symbolism. The tale comes down to a single central theme. The story “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne shows that anyone is susceptible to a change in beliefs, and everyone's lives can be affected from the act of being caught off guard.

In Young Goodman Brown, the main character, Goodman Brown has a bout with his own faith. He ends up losing this battle because of the wickedness in everyone else’s hearts. He begins by wanting to be the evil one, then progresses to be the faithful one as the night in the woods goes on. His name has a lot to do with the character in the story. The “Young” in his name is to symbolize innocence, and “GOODMAN” is pretty self-explanatory. He goes off in to the woods and comes with a lost faith in everyone else in the town.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown illustrates vividly how society and culture can very much influence a person's sense of identity and belonging, or in the case of Young Goodman Brown the lack thereof. Being a Puritan man in a society that scorned the ways of witches and the devil, Young Goodman Brown grew up with a very pious outlook on life. Yet when it occurs to him to look at life a little bit differently, Young Goodman Brown receives more than he has bargained for. The journey he embarks on sheds a whole new light on his society that not only creates a struggle between himself and his fellow men but also one within himself.

After he enters the woods, however, he is no longer referred to as Young Goodman Brown, just Goodman Brown, as if the innocence and purity he once possessed is with him no longer. He left his wife, Faith, for sin and impurity in the woods, so he no longer deserves the title Young Goodman Brown.