The Dual Nature of Man in "Young Goodman Brown"
In "Young Goodman Brown," Hawthorne tells the story of one man’s loss of faith in the human race. As Goodman Brown travels into the woods one night, he is sees the innermost secrets and desires of the people he once placed upon a pedestal. He sees that humans are evil by nature, and this causes him to lose faith in his fellow man. By viewing the story as an allegory, the journey into the woods is associated with the Puritan concept of justification. The Puritans viewed justification, or the means by which one receives the salvation of Christ, as a psychological journey into the "hell (or evil) of the self" (Soler). Goodman Brown fails to complete his process of individuation because he cannot come to terms with the dual Apollonian and Dionysian nature of his being.
The Puritans believed that to be justified, one must let go of his worldly dependence and strive to live a life free of sin (Soler), making the story an allegory “in its treatment of the nature and consequences of the Puritan belief in the total depravity of man” (Waggoner 250). This would have had an impact on the development of the psyche, as the ego struggled to repress certain instincts that the superego deemed as sinful based on Puritanical beliefs.
To understand the effects that Puritanism has on the psyche, one must also realize that Puritanism depraved the human spirit of both Dionysian and Apollonian instincts. Even though it favored Apollonian in the sense that it supported a distancing from the world, it does not support the development of the individual, which is associated with Apollo. Puritan Society frowned upon expressing one’s individuality (that is why, besides the obvious dishonor, wea...
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First, we will start with Goodman Brown. He is the main character in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story titled “Young Goodman Brown”. “Hawthorne could not escape the influence of Puritan society” (McCabe). I think that Hawthorne’s own past is and complications are reveled in his story about Goodman Brown. I believe that Goodman Brown has had a rough past and is trying to reach beyond his past in order to reach heaven. Goodman has some major problems with his wife, Faith, and everyone else in his community. I think that he is seeing everyone as perfect people, but he is having impure thoughts about himself and his past. In order to deal with these problems within himself, he is making up that everyone has this awful bad side. When he goes into the forest, he believes he is talking to the devil with looks much like his grandfather. The devil is feeding him bad thoughts about everyone he knows, even his own father and his wife Faith. Next, I believe that Goodman Brown has had a rough past and in order for him to overcome this within himself he must search for attention. This attention may not be needed from his wife or community members, I believe it is needed from him. He is feeling overwhelmed with obligations from his wife and peers that he has no time to decide whether this type of life is right for him. So, in search for the answer to his questions about life, he turns to the devil and takes his...
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Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Young Goodman Brown. Charlottesville, Va: University of Virginia Library, 1996. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 2 Mar. 2014.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” is an allegory. Hawthorne’s moral story is told through the perversion of a religious leader, Goodman Brown. Goodman is a Puritan minister who lets his excessive pride interfere with his relations with the community after he meets with the devil. The result is that Goodman lives the rest of his life in exile within his own community.
... not be so blindly relied upon. However, after a bit more delving, that the story speaks not only of faith and it's hazards, but of the flaws in the puritan system.
In "Young Goodman Brown," Nathaniel Hawthorne, through the use of deceptive imagery, creates a sense of uncertainty that illuminates the theme of man's inability to operate within a framework of moral absolutism. Within every man there is an innate difference between good and evil and Hawthorne's deliberate use of ambiguity mirrors this complexity of human nature. Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown, is misled by believing in the perfectibility of humanity and in the existence of moral absolutes. According to Nancy Bunge, Hawthorne naturally centers his story upon a Puritan protagonist to convey the "self-righteous" that he regards as the "antithesis of wisdom"(4). Consequently, Young Goodman Brown is unable to accept the indefinable vision of betrayal and evil that he encounters in the forest. The uncertainty of this vision, enhanced by Hawthorne's deliberate, yet effective, use of ambiguity, is also seen in the character of Faith, the shadows and darkness of the forest, and the undetectable boundaries that separate nightmarish dreams from reality.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown” manifests a duality of conflict – both an external conflict and an internal conflict. It is the purpose of this essay to explore both types of conflict as manifested in the story.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown." Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. 5th ed. Ed. John Schlib and John Clifford. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2012. 1131-1141. Print.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an extraordinary writer who sought to describe the Puritan values he felt was lost. Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Young Goodman Brown" is shown as an allegory of the threat essential in forsaking one's Christian conviction, even for one night. As one would assume, the story is infatuated with characters going through the endless trial of sin and guilt. There is a lack of subtlety in this theme, as the main character, Goodman Brown, hopes to accomplish something revolutionary in his travels. Hawthorne uses the theme of sin and guilt, the theme of the psychology of sin, and a nightly quest in order to display the controversies that overwhelmed Goodman Brown.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” is an excellent example of the use of allegories and symbolism as a form of satire on Puritan faith. According to Frank Preston Stearns, author of The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Hawthorne may have intended this story as an exposure of the inconsistency, and consequent hypocrisy, of Puritanism” (Stearns 181). Throughout the story of “Young Goodman Brown,” Hawthorne tries to infuse as many symbols and allegories as he can to enhance the overall meaning of his story. He uses the village, Goodman Brown, Faith, the man in the forest, and the time spent in the forest as either a symbol or an allegory to get his point across that Puritans are not always what they seem to be.
From the beginning of Hawthorne’s story a test of faith prevails. From the moment that Young Goodman Brown parts with his wife, Faith, to when they meet again at the heart of the forest, the very manner Young Goodman Brown has been taught his entire life is at stake. Yet it is not so much Goodman Brown’s faith in God that is the concern but whether or not Goodman Brown feels he can trust anyone or anything he has ever come to know and believe in. Society has preconditioned him to think a certain way, thus through this journey Young Goodman Brown cannot deal with the new Puritan life he witnesses. Since he is unsure of what his society is truly like Goodman Brown is now incapable of knowing his place in society and knowing whom he really is.
The dialogue, action and motivation revolve about the characters in the story (Abrams 32-33). It is the purpose of this essay to demonstrate the types of characters present in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” whether static or dynamic, whether flat or round, and whether protrayed through showing or telling.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown." 1835. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter et al. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Lexington: Heath, 1944. 2129-38.