The Destruction Of Faith In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

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Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown” outlines the accomplishments of Goodman Brown, an esteemed citizen among a community of Godly men. Although initially the conditions of his travels are uncertain, it is eventually made clear to the reader that Goodman Brown embarks on a journey through the wilderness in pursuit of a satanic meeting led by a completely unidentified “dark figure” who’s voice “echoed through the field and rolled through the forest” (Hawthorne 410). It is not understood what Goodman Brown sees as physical or metaphysical, but the meeting he ends up running into was a satanic meeting devised by a utopian religious society. Brown consistently questions what it means to be a “faithful” Christian. Although Goodman Brown uses his wife Faith throughout the story to resist the devil, then his wife turns to the devil, in return Brown fail to maintain his faith in his …show more content…

This is altered when at the beginning of the story, when he first encounters the old man with the livid serpentine staff. When addressed what took so long for Brown to appear, he tells the old man, “Faith kept him back a while” (Hawthorne). Brown is hesitant about going into the forest at night and encountering what seems to be an embodiment of the devil (historically the snake has always been a symbol for the devil) due to his love for Faith. Following their encounter, the old man starts telling Goodman about the malicious acts of not only Brown’s ancestors, but Brown’s own clergyman! Brown vigorously denies these accusations of sin by his peers by again acknowledging his wife Faith and her purity. “There is my wife Faith. It would break her dear little heart; and I’d rather break my own,” Goodman Brown justifies the social identity of his ancestors using his wife Faith as a backbone (Hawthorne

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