Dialectical Journal For Young Goodman Brown

A married man during the Puritan times who makes the decision to wander in the woods to meet a stranger who shows Goodman Brown the truth about his faith and religion. The author describes this interaction to be dark/evil/suspicion. “Nathaniel Hawthorne” uses fear to develop the main idea. Fear can be seen in Goodman when he steps into the woods as he knows nothing good ever comes out of the wilderness. Goodman brown beliefs as a Puritan is that the new world is something to fear rather than dominate “(Overview).”

In both “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Minister’s Black Veil”, Hawthorne attempts to evoke the truth of the human heart. In “Young Goodman Brown”, Goodman Brown lives in Salem where everyone is considered to be pure and holy. During Brown’s journey to the forest, he runs into a man who is revealed to be the devil. “The devil!” Screamed the pious old lady.

He takes a different approach, though. Young Goodman Brown has an encounter with the devil in a dream. At the time we do not know it is a dream, but Young Goodman Brown is talking to the devil who is trying to convince him that people like his father, grandfather, and his priests and deacons, etc. have come to him to seek some sort of revenge. Making Young Goodman Brown think that all of these other people have also done the things like sin, shocks him, but also makes him feel like it is not as bad if he does sin. Before anything goes wrong Young Goodman Brown wakes up from this awful dream, but now he is questioning everything and everyone.

Goodman Brown however, isn’t very fond of this evil darkness and begs for forgiveness and help to escape this dark evil forest of sin. He calls to his wife for aid starting, “With heaven above and Faith below, I will yet stand against the devil!” (Hawthorne 11). As Goodman Brown is plunged deeper into the forest of sin, he fights this evil darkness and

As he sees the town minister and Deacon Gookin headed into the black mass, he is surprised and slightly shaken up but he responds with, “‘ With Heaven above, and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the devil ’” Again, showing his determination to remain in faith. Goodman Brown continues to see many important religious figures in his community make their way to the black mass meeting and faith begins to wane. His faith is fully destroyed when he finds his wife's pink ribbon on the ground in the forest. Again Goodman Brown's wife is used to symbolize his own faith: “‘ My Faith is gone!’

Innocence is a common theme throughout the story being symbolised as multiple things and innocence itself could be a symbol. In “Young Goodman Brown,” through the use of symbols, Hawthorne presents the lesson that,

There are many assumptions to the story of Young Goodman Brown; some say he had a dream of walking into the dark forest and seeing everyone from his village/town at the witches sabbath and some say it happened and was not a dream. The actions of Young Goodman Brown story can help us relate to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s life to show us how he neglected growing up in Salem at the time of the

In the text, “Young Goodman Brown”, Brown’s gloom and withdrawal is justified by the shocking events in the forest. This is because, during his time in the forest, be bears witness to supernatural events in which he sees that many people he knows from the path of god are in reality on the path of the devil. For Brown to be justified in his feelings, the events in question must be deemed events that were real. To start, when Brown first exited the woods after witnessing the ritual, he heard Deacon Gookin, a man at the ritual, praying.

Young Goodman Brown tries to resist villainous temptations, thus the reader can conclude that Brown is not morally strong. Rather than confronting the story's corrupt characters, Goodman Brown just watches from a distance and break down internally. He's constantly standing in the background. In other words, he "deemed it advisable to conceal himself within the verge of the forest" (41). This quote demonstrates that Goodman Brown is not a man of action and thus is a weak and targetable character.

All his faith, despite how shaky he had been in it before, was still solid. Having discovered that his faith is no longer as pure as he once thought, Goodman Brown no longer knows what his truth is. Everything he had taken comfort no longer has the same meaning. Goodman Brown is left asking why, regretting his decision to wander into the forest. He no longer knows who he truly is, because all he had based it off the ideals of his community, a community he no longer

Web. 2 May. 2012. The research of “Young Goodman Brown,” explains the various images found in Young Goodman Brown. Some of them clarifies the author criticisms are the Salem Village, the pink ribbons on Faith’s hat, the fellow traveler, the staff, and using of the term “faith”, and the forest.

In “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne the old man is a symbol for the Devil. The old man appears as soon as Goodman Brown mentions the Devil, carries a staff that resembles a serpent, and the way the old woman reacts to the old man. By creating a physical embodiment of satan in the work, the author demonstrates how even the spiritually strongest can fall into temptation and sin. Straightaway, as soon as Goodman Brown enters the forest he imagines seeing the Devil and the old man appears.

In the story “Young Goodman Brown” Nathaniel Hawthorn uses symbolism and imagery to present the idea that messing with good versus evil is a dangerous decision. The reader is able to take away that Young Goodman Brown made the decision to choose evil and in the end he ended up dying an unhappy man. This vivid imagery and symbolism shown in the short story wasn’t enough to frighten Brown, but

The climax was Brown becomes a completely different person on his return from the forest. During his journey to the forest, he found out that everybody is capable of sin, including his wife Faith and fellow villagers that he is proud. As a result, Brown’s view of his wife and fellow villagers changed forever. The next morning Goodman Brown returns from the forest, and every person he sees seems evil and sinful to him. When he sees Faith, “Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting”.

Young Goodman Brown is a short story dealing with a man who comes face to face with the devil, even though it might seem that this is all the story is about, if you look deeper this story is filled with symbolic images. Goodman Brown is married to a young wife ironically named “Faith.” They have only been married three months. This shows that brown lacks a deep attachment to his “Faith.” This is followed by him wanting to embark on a trip away from his wife, “Of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee.”