In “Young Goodman Brown”, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbolism to show Goodman Brown’s journey into doubt and hopelessness. From the onset of the story, Brown is portrayed as a young man who is in self-doubt, hence the reason for his journey into the woods. This journey is meant to challenge his faith in himself. To answer the question if he is indeed a “good man”. To do this, he must leave his home, and more importantly, his wife behind. He must leave his “Faith” behind and journey alone in to the darkness of his own “forest”. He must take this dark path in order to find out if he is truly the good man that he, and his Faith, thinks him to be. Many believe Hawthorne intended this to be only a symbolic journey. That this whole sequence of events was a dream, a vision that Brown used to rationalize an inner struggle that he could not completely comprehend. Others still, however, insist that this story is completely literal and that Brown did actually experience these events in the woods. Regardless of the interpretation, the symbols that Hawthorne wrote into the story are still there whether or not all was a dream, or a stroll in the woods with the Devil himself.
One symbol that Hawthorne uses to from the start of the story is Brown’s wife, Faith. In the first paragraph of the story, Hawthorne states that Faith was “aptly named” (Hawthorne, 307). Faith is, as Thomas Walsh says, “symbolic of Brown’s faith, which he gradually loses as he doubts more and more the existence of any goodness in man” (Walsh, 332). The further and further he gets from his wife on this journey, the more he looses this faith. Walsh goes on to state that “the physical movement away from Faith, marking his own loss of faith, can be traced through the forest scene to the climax at the witches’ gathering” (Walsh, 332). At the beginning of the journey with the Devil, Brown states that “Faith kept me back awhile” (Hawthorne, 308). This shows that there was some hesitation from the start, the he questioned if he should really go on this journey. The further long he goes, he “bemoans the fact that his action will break Faith’s heart, while at another point he asks himself why he should quit his Faith” (Walsh, 332). The further along his journey goes, the further he gets away from his hope. However, his mind becomes more and more fixed upon it.
Ultimately, Brown is force to confront the resilience of his hope, as his wife kneels before the alter, ready to take communion with evil. Brown screams to his wife “Faith! Faith!...Look up to Heaven and resist the Wicked One” (Hawthorne, 314). What happens to his “Faith” at that point? Not even Brown knows because, as Hawthorne writes “Whether Faith obeyed, he knew not” (Hawthorne, 315). He goes on to say that “Hardly had he spoken, when he found himself amith night and solitude…through the forest” (Hawthorne, 315). Thereafter, when Brown returned home, a “distrustful man did he become” (Hawthorne, 315). His Faith had disappeared before the alter of the Devil, and he knew not where it went, leading him not into doubt of others, but of himself.
The second symbol that Hawthorne uses to show Browns road to despair is the setting of the story: the forest. In leaving his Faith behind, Brown takes “a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees in the forest” (Hawthorne, 307). Walsh writes that “he is plunging into the road leading to despair, and the immediate closing of the trees [behind him] symbolizes the shutting off of his escape” (Walsh, 333). As with his trying to cling on to his Faith the further he goes into the wilderness, the forest is a path that his hope cannot hope to escape from. As he presses on deeper into the forest, his senses start to play tricks on him. As he rushes closer to the heart of the forest, the road grows “wilder and drearier, and more faintly traced…leaving him at the heart of the dark wilderness” (Hawthorne, 312). Hawthorne goes on to describe “the whole forest was peopled with frightful sounds; the creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts…as if all Nature were laughing at him in scorn” (Hawthorne, 312). And finally, upon entering the center of the forest, Brown comes upon Hell itself, with the whole alter ablaze. And just as with Faith, with hope on the edge of the pit, Hell itself vanishes.
A third symbol is that of Brown’s traveling companion, the Devil. Walsh writes that Brown “moves from a state of belief, in which the good and naïve side of his nature predominates, to a state of despair, in which the good side becomes submerged in the dark side, symbolized by the devil” (Walsh, 334). Walsh goes further on to say that “what this man suggests and reveals to him are his own thoughts, which gradually possess him completely” (Walsh, 334). Ultimately, the devils represents Brown himself. Hawthorne describes the traveler as “bearing a considerable resemblance to him [Brown], though perhaps more in expression than features” (Hawthorne, 308). The term expression indicates that the Devil is more like Brown in thought than his actual appearance. Hawthorne does, however, state that “the second traveler was about fifty years old…still, they might have been mistaken for father and son” (Hawthorne, 308). Hawthorne indicates that the Devil is an older version of Brown, indicating a tie with his father, and grandfather. Walsh writes that “this family identification with the Devil, together with the stages by which Goodman Brown comes to believe that his fellow men are evil, becomes most important to an understanding of the beginnings of the dark thoughts which eventually overpower him” (Walsh, 334). Walsh goes on further to say that “the first people who are mentioned with reference to sin are his father and grandfather” (Walsh, 334). When Brown first encounters the Devil, he is hesitant to think that his father and grandfather were capable of such deeds. “We have been a race of honest men and good Christians” he says (Hawthorne, 308). Brown sees himself, and his ancestors, as good men.
Further along, Brown actually takes up more of an resemblance of the devil. Walsh writes “the Devil not only looks like Brown, but he is distinguished by a diabolic laughter and a staff” (Walsh, 335). Brown takes up the Devils laugh and staff. “And so maddened with despair, so that he laughed loud and long, did Goodman Brown grasp his staff and set forth again” (Hawthorne, 312). As he encounters the congregation at the alter, when the devil states “evil is the nature of mankind”, it is Brown, transformed into the Devil by the Devil “himself” saying his true opinion of man (Hawthorne, 314).
Hawthorne uses these symbols to show Brown’s journey away from everything he held dear. These symbols portrayed his journey away from Faith, down a path closing behind him, to the embrace of something that was already festering in his soul. Turning away from the shield of denial, Brown accepts that he is not entirely a good man, nor were his fathers. Now seeing himself as the Devil and as a man, he knows how that evil is in the hearts of men. Brown has succumb to the disparity of the path that led him to this point, and to get there, he walked alone.
Works Cited
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Young Goodman Brown” Literature: An Introduction to
Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar Roberts. 3rd Ed. Pearson Education Inc. Upper Saddle River, NJ. 2006. p. 307-315.
Walsh, Thomas F., Jr. "The Bedeviling of Young Goodman Brown." Modern Language
Quarterly 19 (1958): 331-336. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Georgia Perimeter College, Atlanta, GA. 6 February 2008
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