Young Goodman Brown Essay Research Paper Young 2
Young Goodman Brown Essay, Research Paper
? Young Goodman Brown?
& # 8220 ; Young Goodman Brown & # 8221 ; , by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a moralizing narrative. Hawthorne
shows us the great importance of our religion in God, our household and friends, and at length ourselves.
The predicament of Goodman Brown indicates that without our? religion? we are unable to populate life to the
fullest possible extent. Faith is our cardinal to happiness.
& # 8220 ; Young Goodman Brown & # 8221 ; begins with Goodman Brown about to go for an? errand?
that will take the eventide. Faith, Brown & # 8217 ; s married woman, asks him non to travel, the feeling she has is non a
good one. Goodman Brown says to his & # 8220 ; love and Faith & # 8221 ; , & # 8220 ; this one dark I must loiter away from
thee. & # 8221 ; When he says his & # 8220 ; love & # 8221 ; and & # 8220 ; Faith & # 8221 ; , he is speaking to his married woman, but he is besides talking of his
religion in God. It is finally revealed that this alleged? errand? Brown is on is to meet the
Devil. By making so, he leaves his unquestionable religion in God back in Salem along with his loving
married woman. He resolves that he will & # 8220 ; cleaving to her skirts and follow her to Heaven. & # 8221 ; This shows how
confident he is, that no affair what occurs on this dark everything will be all right. The sarcasm to this
promise is that when Goodman Brown comes back at morning, he can no longer look at his married woman, or
anyone for that affair, with the same religion he had before.
One of the persons Brown encountered on his journey had with him a staff that & # 8220 ; dullard
the similitude of a great black serpent & # 8221 ; . The staff which looked like a serpent is a mention to the
serpent in the narrative of Adam and Eve. The serpent led Adam and Eve to their death by flim-flaming
them into eating the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. The Adam and Eve narrative is similar to
Goodman Brown in that they are both in hunt of something. Once Eve Ate from the Tree of
Knowledge they were expelled from their Eden. The Devil & # 8217 ; s staff finally leads Goodman
Brown to the Devil & # 8217 ; s ceremonial which destroys Goodman Brown & # 8217 ; s religion in his fellow adult male, therefore
interrupting the felicity in Goodman Brown? s life.
When Goodman Brown eventually meets with the Devil, he declares that the ground he was
tardily was because & # 8220 ; Faith kept me back awhile. & # 8221 ; This statement has a dual significance because his
married woman physically prevented him from being on clip for his meeting with the Satan, but his religion in
God psychologically delayed him every bit good. After recognizing what was traveling on, he about
instantly declares that he no longer wishes to go on on his errand. He says that he comes
from a & # 8220 ; race of honorable work forces and good Christians & # 8221 ; and his male parent had ne’er gone on this errand, nor
will he of all time. The Devil is speedy to indicate out, nevertheless, that he was with his male parent and gramps
when they were welting a adult female or firing an Indian small town, severally. This is the beginning
of the uncertainty that clouds Goodman Brown? s head. Stricken with uncertainty Goodman Brown Begins
to believe to himself about his state of affairs. He thinks about his life in Salem ; his loving married woman, and the
fantastic life he leads. ? What a unagitated slumber would be his & # 8230 ; in the weaponries of Faith! & # 8221 ; Once once more the
sarcasm.
As Goodman Brown is experiencing good about his strength in defying the Devil, he hears the
voices of the curate and Deacon Gookin. He overhears their conversation, discoursing a & # 8220 ; goodly
immature adult female to be taken in to communion & # 8221 ; that flushing. Brown fears greatly that it may be his
Faith. When Goodman Brown hears this he becomes weak and falls to the land. He & # 8220 ; begins to
uncertainty whether there truly was a Heaven above him & # 8221 ; . Once once more his religion begins to go forth him, or
allow him down. Yet, in terror, he declares that & # 8220 ; With Heaven above, and Faith below, I will yet
base house against the Satan! & # 8221 ; Again, Brown makes a promise to maintain his religion unto God. Then & # 8220 ; a
black mass of cloud & # 8221 ; comes between Brown and the sky, as if to barricade his supplication from Eden.
Brown now begins to hear familiar voices. A voice of a adult female can be heard faintly, he
believes this to be Faith. He begins to name out her name, but to no help, his harangues are simply
mimicked by the reverberations of the forest, as if his calls merely floated off. A pink thread flies through
the air and Goodman grabs it. At this minute, he has lost all religion in the universe and declares that
there is & # 8220 ; no good on earth. & # 8221 ; Young Goodman Brown in this scene is easy manipulated by the
power of suggestion. The suggestion that the adult female in inquiry is his Faith, a
nd because of this,
he easy loses his religion.
Goodman Brown so loses all of his suppressions and begins to express joy crazily. He takes
clasp of the staff which causes him to & # 8220 ; wing along the forest way & # 8221 ; . Hawthorne at this point comments
about & # 8220 ; the inherent aptitude that guides mortal adult male to evil & # 8221 ; . This is a direct statement from the writer that
he believes that adult male & # 8217 ; s natural disposition is to tilt to evil than good. Goodman Brown had at this
point lost his religion in God, hence there was nil keeping his inherent aptitudes from traveling
towards immorality because his fantastic image of society was shattered. At this point, Goodman
Brown goes huffy and challenges evil. He feels that he will be the ruin of immorality and that he is
strong plenty to get the better of it all. He believes that he is better than everyone else in that he entirely
can destruct immorality.
Finally Brown comes upon the ceremonial which is apparatus like a kinky Puritan temple.
The communion table was a stone in the center of the fold and there were four trees environing the
fold with their tops ablaze, like tapers. A ruddy visible radiation rose and fell over the fold
which cast a head covering of immorality over the fold, the Satan believers. He takes notice of all the
faces that he sees in the service and he recognizes them all, but he so realizes that he does non
see Faith and & # 8220 ; hope came into his bosom & # 8221 ; .
The ceremonial so begins with a a call to & # 8220 ; Bring forth the converts! & # 8221 ; Surprisingly
Goodman Brown steps frontward. & # 8220 ; He had no power to withdraw one measure, nor to defy, even in
thought & # 8230 ; & # 8221 ; . Goodman Brown at this point seems to be in a enchantment and loses control of his organic structure as
he unconsciously enters this service of converts to the Satan. The leader of the service references
the crowd of converts in a distressing mode. He informs them that all the members of the
fold are the righteous, honest, and incorruptible of the community. After his discourse, the
leader informs them to look upon each other and Goodman Brown finds himself face to face with
Faith. The leader begins once more, declaring that & # 8220 ; Evil is the nature of world & # 8221 ; and he welcomes
the converts to & # 8220 ; Communion of your race & # 8221 ; . ( The & # 8220 ; Communion of your race & # 8221 ; statement reflects to
the sarcasm of Brown & # 8217 ; s earlier statement that he comes from & # 8220 ; a race of honorable work forces and good
Christians. & # 8221 ; ) The leader so dips his manus in the stone to pull a liquid from it and & # 8220 ; to put the
grade of baptism upon their brows & # 8221 ; . Brown so snaps out from his enchantment and yells & # 8220 ; Faith!
Religion! Look up to Heaven and defy the wicked 1! & # 8221 ; At this point, the ceremonial terminals and
Brown finds himself entirely. It is ill-defined to Brown if his frenetic supplication, imploring her to defy the
Devil, was successful. Nonetheless he is entirely. Entirely in the wood and entirely in his religion.
& # 8220 ; Young Goodman Brown & # 8221 ; ends with Brown returning to Salem at early morning and looking
around like a & # 8220 ; bewildered man. & # 8221 ; He can non believe that he is in the same topographic point he had merely been
the dark earlier. He felt like an foreigner in a universe of Devil believers. He comes back to the
town & # 8220 ; projecting his guilt onto those around him. & # 8221 ; He is unable to accept the universe in which he
lives, after wintessing the ceremonial. He now sees the immorality in everyone and expresses his
uncomfortableness with his community, even his loving married woman Faith. This choler is exemplified when he
sees Faith. She is overwhelmed with exhilaration to see him, but he looks & # 8220 ; severely and unhappily into
her face, and passed on without a greeting. & # 8221 ; Brown can non even stand to look at his married woman with
whom he was at the convert service with. He feels that even though he was at the Devil & # 8217 ; s service,
he is still better than everyone else because of his inordinate pride.
Goodman Brown was devastated by the find that the potency for evil resides in
everybody. The remainder of his life is destroyed because of his inability to confront this truth and unrecorded with
it. He is stricken with uncertainty and his religion is lost. He lives in fright for the remainder of his yearss. What
Brown witnessed in the wood may hold been a dream, a hallucination, or non, but nevertheless it
planted the seed of uncertainty in his head which accordingly cut him off from his fellow adult male and left
him entirely and down. His life ends entirely and suffering because someplace in that wood he
left his religion behind, unable to get the better of the awful effects of his journey and therefore losing
all hope.