Young Goodman
Brown
By Nathanial Hawthorne
Summary By Anthony W. Antolic
01/11/08
Although the
Salem
Witch Trials had unfolded more than one hundred years prior,
nineteenth-century New England was still reeling from inherited
guilt, even as it rebelled against the constrictive morals of its
forebears, the Puritans. It was into this Salem, Massachusetts,
society that Hawthorne was born in 1804. Despite the fact he listed
Unitarian as his official religion, his roots and sensibilities were
unmistakably Puritan. Hawthorne's great, great grandfather William
Hathorne was a well respected man during the
time of the trials of
1692 in Salem
Village Massachusetts (better
known as the Salem Witch
Trials).
In short Hawthorne grew up surrounded by the “Hell-Fire” Sermons,
inspired by John Calvin. Is it any wonder that “Young Goodman
Brown" tells the story of a Puritan man who loses faith in
humankind after he thinks he witnesses his wife and respected members
of his town participating in a Black Mass. His experience dooms him
to a life of gloom and mistrust.
"Young Goodman Brown" opens with “Young Goodman
Brown” about to embark on an evening's journey. His
Young wife,
Faith, fearful for some unknown reason, beseeches him to delay his
journey. Goodman Brown, however, stresses that he has a task that
must be accomplished before sunrise, and so the newlyweds reluctantly
part. As he walks down the street, Goodman Brown chides himself for
leaving Faith while he goes on his journey and resolves that, after
this night, he will stay by the side of his good and pious wife.
Hawthorne
presents Young Goodman Brown's evening of diabolical revelry as the
first and last fling with evil the inexperienced young man ever has.
Early in the story, Brown says: "after this one night I'll cling
to
skirts and follow her to heaven." He believes Faith
is an "angel." However, Faith Brown serves an allegorical
purpose in this story. It is Faith that Brown leaves behind,
presumably for one night, in order to keep his appointment with the
Devil. Explaining to the old man why he is late Brown says, "Faith
kept me back a while." She represents the force of good in the
world. Thus, when Brown perceives that she too has been corrupted, he
shouts 'My Faith is gone''' and rushes madly toward the witches's
gathering.
You see in the unforgiving world of John Calvin's “Puritans,” one
mistake can mark you for with the “Devil's Mark.” Hawthorne
writes about it in the “Scarlet Letter”. When a woman is
accused of committing adultery. But, the punishment was not to ware
the red letter, but rather, the fact that she was not to talk to any
one or they her, for fear of being excommunicated as well. The woman
would not be able to by food or seed to grow her own. She was not
safe out side the walls of the village, yet she would starve or
freeze to death with in her walls. Like I said this is not a
forgiving world that Young Goodman Brown was risking his life for. He
was accentually committing suicide by going out that night.
If the Magistrates had caught him he too could have been banished
from Salem. Placed in the stocks and left to starve, and only if he
were to survive the winter would he be deemed worthy of communing
with the Parish again. Goodman had to have thought of this as he
walked out into the dead of night. He did not know that the whole
village would be there to great him. So his intent seems clear. If
Faith was lost, than what did he have to live for. For with out Faith
we have no hope and with out hop we have no life.
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