‘The Relationship between truth and innocence’
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown is a story told about “Young Goodman Brown”. The story starts as Brown says goodbye to his three-month-old wife Faith, outside his house in Salem village. Faith spotting, pink ribbons in her cap, says that she is afraid to stay alone and begs him not to go. Goodman Brown tells her that he must go on with this journey and reassures her that he will be back by the morning. He reminds her to pray and promises that he will come back home good. As he leaves Faith behind, he feels guilty after she begs him not to go but promises to be a better person when he is back. Goodman Brown sets off into the forest, afraid of what might be around the place. He soon meets a man and is frightened as the man approaches and greets him. The man is dressed much like him, but he carries a walking stick which is carved like a snake, and it seems to move.
As the two men move through the forest, Goodman Brown refuses to take the staff as the man offers so that he can walk faster. He tells the stranger that his family members have always been Christians and that he hopes to return to the village well for his wife’s sake. The stranger then talks about Goodman’s family that he knew his father and grandfather. The two men keep moving, and they come across Goody Cloyse, who Goodman recognizes her as the respected spiritual guide and teacher in the village. He decides to hide from the woman because of the embarrassment of being seen with the man. Goodman soon realizes that the woman is no different from the man as she identifies the mysterious man as the devil and herself as a witch. The woman states that she is on her way to the evil ceremony taking place in the forest.
The mysterious man tells Goodman how everyone is evil and reveals how he even knows people like the governor of the state and other members of churches in New England. As Goodman sits meditating what the stranger has told him, he hears sounds of horses traveling towards his direction, and he hides again. He hears their voices and recognizes them as Deacon Gookin and Minister of the church. They are also looking to be on the way to the ceremony. As Brown comes out from his hiding place, he tells himself that he will stay true to his faith, and he intends to turn back and head to the village. He screams her wife’s name, and a pink ribbon from her cap falls down from the sky. He decides to grab the staff, which takes him to the ceremony where the trees around it are on fire. Goodman identifies the faces of various respected people in the community. As the converts are to being brought forward, he sees his mother trying to hold him back while his father signals him to move forward.
The Minister of the church and Deacon Gookin soon drag Goodman forward while the other person was brought forward by Goody close and Martha Carrier. The other convert brought forward was covered making it hard for Goodman to identify. Goodman soon realizes that the other convert is faith, and he tells her to resist the devil, and he then finds himself again alone in the forest. On his return to Salem village the next day, Goodman Brown sees everyone as evil. The Minister of the church and Deacon Gookin are praying, and the Minister tries to bless him, which he refuses to accept. He also sees Goody Cloyse talking to a young girl, and he snatches the girl away from her. Finally, he refuses to greet his wife Faith as he doesn’t trust anyone in the village. For the rest of his life, Goodman Brown is changed as he doesn’t believe the words of the Minister of the church, he calls Gookin a wizard, and he doesn’t love his wife like before.
In the story, innocence is portrayed in Brown and his wife Faith. At the start of the story, Goodman is innocent as he does not know the horrible things that the people he described as straight back in the community are evil. Brown finds himself in a situation where he has to decide between staying or venturing into the forest; thus, his innocence makes him venture. Rowshanzamir stated that Brown simplicity contradicts when he accepted the evil spirits and entered into the woods. He had to leave his personal beliefs and the social norms that guide his community behind. As a firm believer and a puritan, Brown let his pride lead him into the forest where he met with the devil. He starts having doubts about continuing with the journey and says that neither his father nor grandfather has been this far before. Also, when he met the devil at first, he was capable of resisting the devil’s attempts of carrying the snake-like walking stick even though he had lost his faith by venturing into the forest. With Brown’s innocence on his grandfather and father, the devil tells him that he was with his father when they were flogging a woman, and also he helped his grandfather when he was burning an Indian village (Rowshanzamir 246).
Faith, his wife, also is portrayed as decent and truthful. Brown believes that she is gracious and respectful that she promises her he will come to a better man after his journey to the woods. Faith begs him not to go that she will be alone and afraid foreshadows the events that might occur to Brown before the sunrises. When Brown is in the forest interacting with the stranger, his first excuse is that he comes from a family of believers. He refuses to continue with the journey because of his wife Faith. Brown hears the Minister and Gookin conversing that a young woman will be taken into communion, and the woman turns out to be his wife Faith, and at this moment, he declares that “no good on earth”.
Also, in the beginning, Goodman believes, and social upbringing presents him as a person of honesty and a good man with high expectations of his people. Gashout states that Brown is portrayed as a person who is confident in his awareness of the people back in the village. As they work through the forest, the mystery man described as the devil tells him the way he has communed with the preacher. Brown also sees his mentor, teacher, and spiritual guide conversing with the stranger, and then she portrays herself as a witch. Goodman Brown’s trust is broken when the man tells him that he knows the preacher and some of the members of the New England church. He also meets the Minister and Gookin, who he thought are good people back in society, but they were the ones’ who dragged him during the evil ceremony. Lastly, the older woman who was his teacher and spiritual guider back in society reveals herself as a witch, and all of these events also contradict what he knew before (Gashout 2017).
As the story ends, the reader is given a different view of Goodman Brown on what he believed before venturing into the forest. In the beginning, we are informed that he is a man of faith and integrity. Before he entered the forest, he respected the word of God, and after kissing his Faith goodbye, he was able to see the truth on what is happening around him. Deep in the woods, he is capable of understanding the reality happening around him. Everything he knew before he ventured into the woods is now full of distrust after he learned some of the things about his people. When the sunrises and Brown are back in his village, he is distrustful after his innocence was contradicted. The things he used to value earlier means nothing to him. He is no longer a man of faith as he cannot listen to the preacher who he says is full of hypocrisy. He refuses to accept his blessing and no longer has confidence on the Sabbath day as he is separated from his former self.
With the potential evil that resides within the members of his society, Brown can now not trust them to be good because he believes them to harbor sin within. With the belief that men are sinners or carry a minimum of evil inside them creates distrust. Johansen states that isolation from society to keep off from sin or anyone who has sinned isn’t possible. Hawthorne also shows his disapproval of the judgments that puritans have allowed themselves to present, like the witch trials of Salem. Moreover, he highlights the confusion led to by the contradiction within the puritan doctrine, the religion, and peace versus the mistrust and self-doubt (Johansen 2019).
As Brown is portrayed as the one who turns to misbehaving and acting sinful, he believes this to be better than letting sinners near him. He ventured into the woods that night himself, tempted by sin. When he returns to Salem, he is no longer innocent as before, after learning the truth. He feels like Salem is no longer home. Takeuchi believes that the reason he cannot rest or find comfort in his religion again is that he feels sinful without realizing it. He is so frightened of sin that he turns into a sinner himself and that he overlooks his sin. Brown expresses his distrust with the members of the society when he snatches the little girl from Goody Cloyse, his former spiritual teacher. Also, his innocence of faith was broken when he learned the truth about her. Faith, his wife, is excited as she sees him, but he is sad and passes her without even greeting her (Takeuchi 2016).
In conclusion, Brown’s life is different now after learning the truth. The rest of his life is different now as he has already learned the truth about his people. He decides to stay alone as he sees himself better than everyone else. When he was innocent, he believed that everyone in his society was kind, and with learning the truth, he ends up depressed and alone.
Works Cited
Gashout, Muna AS. “Structuralism and literature 2017: A critical approach to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story” Young Goodman Brown.”
Johansen, Ida Kjensli. Guilt and Sin in American Puritan Society in Hawthorne’s Short Stories. BS thesis NTNU, 2019.
Rowshanzamir, Mohsen Mahmoud. “Nathaniel Hawthorne And The Social Morality.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature 3.6 (2014): 243-251
Takeuchi, Kisaki. “An Analysis of Hawthorne and Akutagawa.” (2016).