Young Goodman Brown: Hiding In Plain Sight

In the story “Young Goodman Brown,” the character Brown is a religious man who lives fully on his faith, spiritually and physically. Faith was also the name of his wife, which could be taken as symbolism for his actual faith that was in his life. As it says in the book “And Faith, as the wife was aptly named…” He uses his “Faith” to go about the world. He uses Faith to guide him throughout the way that he lives his life continuously. Another ironic aspect in the story of “Young Goodman Brown,” is how they are in the town of Salem which is known for various reasons. One main reason is that Salem is where the famous Witch Trials had taken place. The Witch Trials became a huge part of American history because of the countless Puritans that were sentenced to death for being accused of practicing witchcraft. Therefore, witchcraft being pure evil goes against every part of the Puritan religion.

“Young Goodman Brown” tells the story of Goodman Brown. Goodman Brown begins the story about to leave home and his Puritan Wife Faith to go on a journey that he felt guilty with to begin with. Despite his initial guilt, he leaves home a devout Puritan and sound in his beliefs. Throughout the story, Goodman Brown digresses as a man and loses his faith over the course of events of the story. On his journey, Brown meets a man who first tries to tempt him to go with him to a meeting in the forest. The man turns out to be the devil. Before parting ways, the devil gives Brown a staff

“By the sympathy of your human hearts for sin ye shall scent out all the places—whether in church, bedchamber, street, field, or forest—where crime has been committed, and shall exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood spot” (332). Near the end of the story, Goodman Brown has seen the evil in every person, and it causes isolating of his life. In the story, the narrator poses an important question: "Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest, and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting?" (Meyer 333). The choice is dream or reality. Whatever the reader chooses to believe, Goodman Brown's own horrible doubts create a central theme of the tale (Fogel 21).

In “Young Goodman Brown”, the main character, Goodman Brown, faces is faced with two options on his journey- to continue the paved, safe, well-known path or to veer off into the mysterious, unfamiliar woods. While the paved road is safer, he chooses the path through the woods because it offers the opportunity to test his curiosity. He abandons his faith and sets out on his journey to see what witchcraft is really like. The Devil, disguised as an old man, guides him from his home and faith to the witch meeting. Brown starts to doubt himself and his intentions and wants to turn back and retreat to his faith, but the old man urges him to keep going. Brown sees his Bible teacher and does not want to be seen her to see him, so the Devil says, “Betake you to the woods, and let me keep the path” (171). Once in the woods, Goodman Brown again feels guilty for forsaking his faith and wants to end the journey. He said to the Devil, “My mind is made up. Not another step will I budge on this errand” (173). However, he is manipulated the old man manipulates him into following through with the quest.

“Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a short story centered around the psychoanalysis of Young Goodman Brown. Hawthorne was an American Novelist who wrote exceptional short stories, many of the Dark Romantic genre. The genre is characterized by dark, gloomy, psychologically crazed, romanticisms that often don’t have that typical happy ending. Throughout “Young Goodman Brown” his mental capacity is put to the test as he is forced to endure a battle between 2 conflicting emotions. Ambivalence is shown throughout the story as well, due to these conflicting emotions. Young Goodman Browns departure on his journey outlines the power struggle of good and evil within himself and the sinful nature his psyche imposes on the members of his community.

The story of ?Young Goodman Brown? exemplifies the struggle of one man?s internal conflict of good and evil. The main character, Goodman Brown, leaves Salem village and his wife, Faith, to travel into the depths of the dark forest. The Young Goodman Brown will be aged with the knowledge he faces in this one night. Brown keeps his appointment with the devil in the forest, and he must choose to go back to his ?faith,? or explore the evils that the devil has to offer. Next, Brown is confronted with the virtuous people who live in his community, who will be attending the witch?s meeting with the devil. He has to decide if he will follow them along this

With every person the Devil introduces in the forest Young Goodman Brown does not know how to react. All of these God loving people in the forest with the Devil is not possible to him. All of these revelations make him realize not everyone is who they seem to be. With this realization Young Goodman Brown does not see anyone the same when returning to Salem, even his wife

After a night of making deals with the Devil, having all of his fellow countrymen show their Satanic sympathies and himself becoming affiliated with the Fallen Angel, Brown understandably looks to account these incredible events to a dream state. However, Brown acts coldly towards Faith after that particular night, and completely changes his demeaner as he begins to question whether the dream was, in fact, a dream, or reality. What may have been but a dream turns out to haunt Brown for the rest of his life, as he can no longer accept the people in his life for what they appear to be, and can not forget that he saw them all at the witch-meeting. In contrast, is the debatable question of whether or not the dream was only a "wild dream" (Hawthorne, 318). If Young Goodman Brown indeed did dream of the witch-meeting, then he has wasted his life with his unrestrained, unrelenting paranoia. Because of the ambiguity of the situation, where neither the reader, narrator nor protagonist can be sure of the validity of the dream's depictions of the residents of Salem, Hawthorne makes it difficult of analyze Brown's character. It it therefore impossible to come to any absolute conclusions regarding the nature of Young Goodman Brown as one cannot accurately assess what has happened to him, and the consequences of those events.

To begin with, the short story “Young Goodman Brown” has strong themes of faith. The story is about a man by the name of Brown and his wife Faith. Brown walks into the forest against Faith’s wishes and meets an old man and the two walk deeper into the forest. Brown tries to go back to the town of Salem, but the other man insists that he should continue to go deeper into the forest. While not literally stated in the story, “Young Goodman Brown” has strong themes in Puritan faith. To begin with, the Puritans in the village of Salem believed that the forest in the Americas was the Devil’s playground and that his agent witches lived there. The forest was also home to the Native Americans, who the villagers believed were savages because the Bible said that the wilderness was home to savage and wild beasts(Ezekiel 34:25). Because of this, the man Brown is walking with is a metaphor for the Devil, or at least abandonment of faith.

The sunset came forward as Young Goodman Brown arrived at Salem Village. There he saw his wife, Faith, whom he had only being married to for three months. Faith and Goodman Brown watched as the villagers tied up a so called “witch” to the stick. The villagers had accused the Indian woman of being a witch when she was seen dancing around. They had planned to get rid of the evil by burning her next morning. Tragically, in the old times this was a common practice. The people of the village considered themselves pure Christians. At least that is what Young Goodman Brown believed, till one night it he thought otherwise.

“Young Goodman Brown” written by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a short narrative following the journey, both literal and metaphorical, of a young man, Goodman Brown. He sets off into the woods, meeting a rather interesting man who is quickly likened to the devil. Throughout the story, Hawthorne does use imagery to imply that the character depicting the devil influenced Goodman Brown to follow a path of evil. However, he also is careful to show that while the “devil” was an influence, it was ultimately Goodman Brown who made the decision himself. In other words, although people’s values and decisions are shaped by others, in the end, everyone chooses the actions they take and the things they believe. This idea can be seen in many instances within

Young Goodman Brown story was very interesting as it talked about God and Brown’s faith. When he went out in the forest in Salem Village, I believed everything that happened was something conjured by evil but Brown put himself in that situation. That morning, his wife Faith asked him for a hug and kiss, and tried to convince her husband Brown, not to go into the forest at night. She whispered in his ear, “Put off your journey until sunrise, and sleep in your own bed tonight, (Brown 386).” Faith was a Godly woman who always prayed for her and her husband. She too had troubled dreams and thoughts. She was afraid of herself sometimes, especially of her thoughts. Brown never knew about her doubtful thoughts. Brown didn’t understand with it being

Youthful Goodman Brown goes into the backwoods to meet with a character who looks like both Brown and the Devil. He meets a devout individual from the town while in transit to meet this evil character, and is amazed that somebody so great would be embraced the same errand. He finds a witches' Sabbath where the clergyman, the minister, and even his wife are in attendance.Brown shouts to his wife and the scene disintegrates. He turns back and comes back to the village.Brown is everlastingly changed by the episode and suspicious of others. He kicks the bucket a sad

In the short story “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Goodman Brown sets out on a mysterious “errand” into the woods unaware of the magnitude of evil that will later overwhelm him. Although Brown is reluctant to continue on the journey the old man is cunning and persuasive slowly intriguing him to keep going. Once he reaches his destination he is shaken up by the discovery that he is at a black mass, and that most of the townspeople including his wife, Faith, are there. Realizing that Faith is about to pledge herself to the Devil, he cries out in dismay. Suddenly he finds himself standing alone in the forest unsure if what had occurred was simply a dream or a dark reality. Goodman Brown shows both innocence and

Nathaniel Hawthorne have develop a great plot in “Young Goodman Brown” since the ending is kind of confusing. Leaving the question and judgment to the reader of whether Goodman Brown experience was real or just a pure dream of his consciousness. One assumption that can be made is that the experience told in the story by Hawthorne was simply a dream formed in the subconscious of Goodman Brown. Starting with the fact, that Goodman Brown lives in “Salem village” (3), a location where witch trials were held according to history. An statement mentioned by Hawthorne in the story that provide evidence that Goodman Brown might be mentally ill and/or dreaming is “He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely