Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown - The Fall of Man into Sin

Free Young Goodman Brown Essays: The Fall of Man into Sin

After reading this the first time, my first thought was "did this actually take place or did Brown just dream the whole thing?" Hawthorne purposely makes that fact ambiguous. He poses the same type of question in the end of the story. To me, this is appropriate. The story centers on evil being something hidden in this small town. The preacher goes about his praying, the old woman continues catechizing a little girl, etc. all after Brown has "witnessed" the witch meeting in the forest. By not being clear if this was a dream or not, Hawthorne supports the hidden nature that the people have in the story. He covers up the truth just as the village people hid their sinful life that Brown was witness to. This way, the story and the people in the village remain a mystery to the reader just as the truth remains a mystery to Brown.

Secondly, I noticed a lot of the re-reading papers on this story dealt with Faith as a character or Faith as a belief. (As Jennifer said, this story is a battle of faith and good and evil) To me, there is no escaping the fact that Faith is a representation of the "good" forces that oppose evil in the story. In the beginning, when Brown first leaves her behind, she tells him "God bless you" and "may you find all well when you return." Faith is about to be deserted for this meeting with evil in the woods. In Biblical terms, if you leave your faith behind, you may not find things the same when you try and come back to it. Brown also tells his evil partner "Faith kept me back awhile." Brown had to talk himself into meeting this person saying that after this one meeting he will follow faith to Heaven. His timid nature and willingness to go to Heaven (faith) delayed him just as much as his wife. After Brown has this meeting, Faith deserted falls into the hands of evil. He welcomes the devil when he finds his faith missing (sound familiar?) He finds a timid bit of hope when he asks where Faith is during the rituals he witnesses. At the last minute, Brown yells out to Faith to regard Heaven and resist temptation and at that moment the witch meeting dissolves.