Use Of The Devil In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

Throughout time people have been manipulated and controlled by the devil’s deceitful tricks. In the Gothic story, “Young Goodman Brown”, Hawthorne provided detailed information through the use of characters, setting, and plot. He used imagery and symbolism to create a deeper connection between the reader and the text. He also utilized creative names for the characters that allowed for assumptions to be made about them and their nature. The names of the characters, Young Goodman Brown and his wife “Faith” for example, allowed the reader to know, before reading, that the story had a religious concept. Hawthorne was sending a hidden message about purity and faith, and how the devil could manipulate mankind in order to destroy the goodness

The Devil used people Brown was familiar with, and whom he saw as safe and good, to put him at ease. This allowed the Devil to make additional advances towards capturing Brown’s soul. For example, when Brown wanted to stop and turn around, Hawthorne introduced Goody Cloyse, who was his Sunday School teacher. She was in his eyes, a Godly woman. However, she was summoned by the devil, who claimed that she knew him as an “old friend.” (79) Notice that she was the one who made it vague to the reader that the devil was present and if she had seen and spoken to him before. Goody Cloyse had taught him “Catechism” as a young boy. She mentioned to the devil that they were on the way to a “communion” and asked him for a horse to ride. She then disappeared when the devil negotiated the offering of his staff. Not too long after Goody Cloyse, the devil conjured up Deacon Gookin, his father, and his grandfather. He proclaimed to have known them all quite well and explained that they were one of his many children too. In the Bible, it tells us that we are all God’s children, but the devil made it evident that the people he named belonged to him

Young Goodman Brown loved Faith and thought that she was pure and good. Faith’s ribbons were also seen in the forest at the end of the journey, which placed an emphasis on the importance of her goodness. The devil’s trickery enticed Brown to continue his journey. In most testimonies the color of “Faith” is white. Perhaps Hawthorne was hinting, with the pink ribbon, that Faith was not as pure and good as Brown attempted to make her appear. When Brown began to contemplate the existence of faith and purity, it revealed to the reader that his faith in God, which had been solid, was now weakened. Hawthorne, in this section, stated that the devil would use the people closest to Brown to attempt to change his thoughts about his religion and faith. Young Goodman Brown saw that all of his friends had sinned and that “faith” (both being his belief and his wife) was not as strong and powerful as he once thought. “Taking into account that Brown’s society is hypocritical and based its beliefs strongly on the potency of the community, his dissents to the common proceedings can be seen as sin.” (“Hawthorne’s Wilderness: Nature and Puritanism in Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter and Young Goodman