Young Goodman Brown

The tale is set in a small village of Salem in near Boston. The settlers are the early 17th century puritans who came from England. The puritans are English Protestants whose lives are very much influenced by Christianity. Christian belief had influenced the morality of the townsmen. The protagonist Goodman Brown is an interesting name that Hawthorne chose in this story. We could almost predict by reading the few paragraphs that the story is going to be about the character of Goodman. In the story Goodman leaves his wife Faith, to meet a mysterious figure in the woods. Leaving his wife Faith is allegorical to leaving the Christian belief or having lost faith in God. So the mysterious man who we can relate to the Devil himself can be compared to temptations that people have in daily life. As the Goodman travels through the forest with the mysterious man he finds he is not alone in the quest. His discovers that the people highly regarded for being devout Christians and being very kind and moral are walking along with the mysterious guy. He does not want to proceed with the group and he often looks back thinking about his wife. He is surprised to see his wife Faith proceeding with the group. This is done by the author to create dilemma because Goodman has to either follow his wife Faith or follow his religious faith. This is very much practical in our daily life where we have to decide whether we follow certain things because everyone else does or we follow only the things we like to. Finally, he denies his loyalty to the mysterious man and tells his wife to fight the devil that is trying to take her away. He wakes up middle of the forest and when he returns he finds everyone acting normal. This story is about the power of one’s belief and Goodman like his name is very Good and loyal to his wife Faith and his faith in Christianity. This story can be linked to the infamous witch trials of Salem. As Goodman had abandoned the path shown by the devil and listened to him, the author would want to send a message to people that it is not always the best to follow others like the ones who followed others in those witch trials. There are many gothic elements like the mysterious guy who looks like how devil would look like, a staff that became a serpent and various other images that incite aghast. Here human nature is shown to be flawed but the flaw can be fixed by listening to self rather than others. Here the author has shown that goodness of a person can always overcome the evil nature. This is a very important point the author is trying to make. The tone of the story is simple and easy to understand. The imagery used by the author might make more sense to people who know more about the Christian belief system and other stories about Christianity.