The Symbolism Of The Forest In Hawthorne's Good Young Goodman Brown

In Good Youngman Brown, nature plays the roles of: stripping away all that is familiar, perverting what is originally known, and questions what happened. Originally, Brown viewed nature as a means to attain salvation, and set off into the woods to do so. However, Nature shifts Brown’s plans by forcing him to view people he knew in a darker and more demonic light, and starts questioning Brown’s own values. As Brown journeys deeper into the forest, he sees different versions of people he knew, and is surprised by it. For Brown, Nature removes the outward appearance and reveals the true person beneath the surface, and leaves him to question what happened. As first stated, Brown enters the forest with the hope of attaining access to heaven (Hawthorne

This brings up the question of what is the forest? The first description of the forest shows us that it is dark, and hard to see through (Hawthorne 191). One of the descriptions of the forest is given when the traveler is using his staff “shaking himself so violently that his snakelike staff actually seemed to wriggle in sympathy” (Hawthorne 193). Another point to consider is whether or not the forest exists as questioned by Predmore: “The first indications that Brown’s experiences are psychological begins when the hero enters the forest. Before anything strange or supernatural happens, he begins to wonder to himself ‘what if the devil himself should be at my elbow?’ (Hoffman ) and in the very next instant the devil magically appears” (251). As such, it seems that Hoffman is hinting that Brown’s imagination has gone wild and created the situation. Added to this is the fact that the forest is dark, making it even harder to fully see what is going on. In one instance, Brown does try to pray in the forest: “While he still gazed upward into the deep arch of the firmament and had lifted his hands to pray, a cloud, though no wind, was stirring, hurriedly across the zenith and hid the brightening stars” (Hoffman 196). This attempt by Brown to reach for heavenly assistance is immediately shot down by nature, as if to isolate him in the forest. Another example of how the forest is unusual occurs when Brown soon after: “and the voices, talking so strangely in the empty air, passed on through the forest, where no church had ever been gathered or solitary Christian prayed.” (Hawthorne 196). This description reveals that the forest is no place for a meeting of any kind, much less one that involves Christian characters such as Deacon Gookin and Goody Closy. However, when Brown listens to the end of a conversation between Deacon Gookin and one of his companions, he hears this: “Moreover, there is a