Young Goodman Brown Essay Example for Free

Young Goodman Brown Essay â€Å"Young Goodman Brown† is a short story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne about a young man who has to endure the experience of temptations of evil and dance with the devil. Goodman Brown is a young adult who has influences all around him swaying him towards evil that he felt were reliable role models. Hawthorne uses literary devices to display many different meanings in this story. In the story, the most common devices are imagery and symbolism. The imagery used is to help the reader understand the symbolism he is portraying. He uses these devices to develop a theme to the story and provide different aspects of good and evil. Many people now a days fall under the temptation of sin, even Christians. Having faith with God is commonly seen as a good relationship to have and gives you a positive outlook on life, but after losing that faith, your world darkens and not everything seems as bright as it did. Hawthorne’s use of symbolism and imagery helps to develop the theme of Christians losing faith through temptation and peer pressure as Goodman Brown does. Hawthorne uses symbolism throughout the whole story to imply influences of evil around Goodman Brown. The young man decides to take a journey one night because he feels compelled to. His wife Faith begged him not to go, but to stay there with her and hold off the journey until the morning. Hawthorne uses his wife’s name as Faith not by accident; she symbolizes his Faith in God and the innocence left in Goodman Brown. Faith has on her person pink ribbons; these ribbons represent the innocence in Faith because the color pink is known as innocence. Brown does not agree to his wife’s wishes and departs on his journey right around sunset. Brown must leave Faith behind while he goes on his adventure, by that Hawthorne means he not only leaves his wife behind, but also his spiritual faith. He travels through the forest which in itself is symbolism. He walks through the forest at night when it’s dark; Brown not having much visibility the further into the forest he goes is representing his confusion with life right now, not knowing where to go or what to do. Throughout the story, the forest grows darker and darker, representing God’s light fading away and Brown losing his faith. â€Å"The village is a place of light and order, while the forest is a place of darkness and unknown terrors. † (Xia-Chun) Brown then meets a man on his journey; this man is very influential in the story. The man is the devil carrying a staff that Hawthorne describes as serpent-like symbolizing the biblical reference of a serpent being an evil demon. In the Book of Genesis, the serpent is the main temptation Eve has to try the fruit of the forbidden tree. Similar to that, Goodman Brown accepts the devil’s offer of his staff, or serpent, in order to travel quicker. Brown fell under the temptation of the devil. The further into the forest Brown goes, the more he learns about his peers and elderly and the deals with the devil that they have made, thus causing Brown to lose faith. Once he is able to get back into the town of Salem, although he was able to resist the devil, he is still a changed man. Before his journey, he thought the world was a perfect place and no one was capable of hurting anyone or committing the act of sin. The relationship between Creator and creature, and between man and fellow man, is destroyed by sin†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Fairbanks 25) After the journey, he realized that there is a lot of darkness and sin in the world and that more people than he realized were capable of unthinkable things and sinning in ways he never would have dreamt of. Hawthorne uses a good amount of symbolism in this story, most of it is obvious symbolism that he wants any reader to understand, not by analyzing deeply but just by having some common knowledge. Therefore, he uses imagery to really help the reader realize the symbolism he is implying. At the beginning of the story, Hawthorne notes that Brown is starting this journey right at sunset; the thought of sunset is considered light fading away and eventually becoming darkness. The use of this imagery provides the thought of symbolism that the young man is going into the unknown darkness and his light, which is a symbol also for his faith, is fading. Another good use of imagery is in the beginning of the story when Hawthorne writes â€Å"And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap, while she called to Goodman Brown† (435). Hawthorne is using the wind to not only emphasize the pink ribbons Faith wears and help readers understand that those ribbons have meaning and is a symbol to her innocence, but also to explain the beauty of nature in Salem before his mind turns pessimistic and the town fades to darkness. Brown’s view of the town at the beginning before he was revealed all of the sin was a bright, pleasant town full of true-spirited people. The experience of this one night in the forest changes Goodman Brown for the rest of his life, for it poisons his relationship with his wife, isolates him from his neighbors, and destroys his ability to worship God. † (Easterly 55) After his trip with the devil, he was a changed man and saw the town with blackened eyes, only able to see the wrong in people and the capabilities of the devil. Hawthorne develops multiple themes during the story of Young Goodman Brown using the literary devices of symbolism and imagery. In telling the story of the journey Brown embarks on, Hawthorne brings the young man through the forest explaining to him that he is not the only one that has fell under the temptation of the devil and sin. For example, Goodman Brown looked up to his father and grandfather just as any young adult man would. When he was informed of the unimaginable thought of them making a deal with the devil: I have been as well acquainted with your family as with ever a one among the Puritans; and that’s not trifle to say. I helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through the streets of Salem. And it was I that brought your father a pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set fire to an Indian village, in King Philip’s war. (Hawthorne 436-437) The devil telling Brown about this was a surprise to Goodman because he always looked up to his father and grandfather and never imagined that either of them would be associated with the devil. The devil shows Goodman Brown the acquaintances, loved ones, public figures of the town who have all fallen into the devils trap and have sinned even when Brown looked up to them and thought none of them had evil in them. †¦young naive man who accepts both society in general and his fellowmen as individuals at their own valuation, is in one terrible night presented with the vision of human Evil, and is ever afterwards â€Å"A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not desperate man†¦Ã¢â‚¬ Ã¢â‚¬  (Fogle 207) The unbelievable knowledge given to him led him into the devil’s trap and no longer saw the world as a pleasant place; he now only saw the evil in people. Just as anyone today would do, Brown fell under temptation and peer pressure and became a figure of sin. Hawthorne explains throughout the story about the temptations and peer pressure of evil that Brown faces. The thought of seeing childhood idols that were perfect in your mind involved in deals with the devil could lead you to feel differently about those people and question your own lessons learned from them. Seeing these people around you engaged in sin and falling into temptations brings a lot of peer pressure to you and leads you to rethink your lifestyle and make you vulnerable to doing things you wouldn’t normally. He explains that Christians lose faith easily and fall into sin through the story of young Goodman Brown using symbolism and imagery.