A Character Analysis of Young Goodman Brown from Hawthorne

What Created Goodman Brown? A man so tormented by what even he considered a dream that he changed his life in a deeply negative way forever. Goodman Brown was a man haunted by his own conscience; He was someone who believed he had committed a grave sin by meeting the devil and participating in a witch encounter in his dreams. This spoke of an era when people were weighed down by religious guilt and superstition. As a result of Brown’s dream, he suspected that everyone in the city was complicit with the devil, furthermore, his superstition and self-questioning outweighed his ability to trust or believe in anyone else. He died bitter, unhappy and miserable.

To fully understand Young Goodman Brown’s character, we must first understand the era from which he came. Although Hawthorne does not directly indicate whether the plot of this story takes place in Salem in the seventeenth century, his references to other characters clearly imply that it does. His references to Martha Carrier, Martha Cory, and Sarah Cloyse, all women hanged as witches in 1692; as well as his reference to King William, who ruled England from 1650-1702, speak of this horrible time when people murdered, tortured, burned, executed and suspected that everyone from his sister to his neighbor might be in contact with the devil. As a result of this environment of suspicion and paranoia, Goodman may have felt that his dream was actually a lack of faith on his part. He may have felt so guilty about experiencing this dream that he thought that he, as well as the people in his life, were guilty of coercing with the devil.

Goodman Brown could have been Hawthorne’s expression of his own struggles with his faith in humanity and in himself. Hawthorne was a guilt-ridden person and I think he had many instances where his faith was tested. Brown is Hawthorne to a lesser extent. Goodman Brown starts out as a good, happy, decent man; seems very happy. This all changes when he decides against the advice of his wife Faith (the symbolism is obvious here) that he must go on a trip to the forest to meet the devil. I believe that the path in the forest is his continual descent into darkness both metaphorically and literally. As he continues through the forest, he reaches the pinnacle of his journey when he encounters the gathering of witches. Once Brown reaches this point, he loses faith despite his last desperate effort to save his wife. You never know if you could save her. This doubt is what destroyed him.

Brown’s motivation for meeting the devil is never made absolutely clear and can only be speculated by the devil’s references to others who have entered his fold. It speaks of Goodman’s king, father and grandfather, deacon, minister, and mayor. The devil makes it appear that everyone with any power, success, or, for that matter, anyone who means something to Goodman, is in fact in league with Satan. Although Goodman resists the devil’s temptations at first; As more and more people come to your attention as followers of the dark, the idea becomes more palatable. I think Brown’s motivation for meeting the devil was power; he wanted an advantage over others to achieve his goals. This may have contributed to his last desperate effort to save the faith when he shouted “Look to the sky and resist the Evil One.” When he came to the meeting of the witches, he discovered that they all already had the advantage of being on the side of the wicked and had already sold their souls for money, power or prestige. He could see that nothing would put him ahead of the rest as he went ahead with his original task. He had nothing to gain and everything to lose by making an alliance with the devil. Unfortunately for young Goodman Brown, it was too late to save his soul. He reached the point of no return and not only did he not gain any benefit from his ordeal, but he lost all the happiness that he previously possessed.

Goodman Brown was a man torn apart by his own obsession. He lived a miserable life as a result of the guilt he felt for embarking on a dark journey in his dreams; which resulted in his distrust of everyone and a lack of trust in the people of his community, in himself and in humanity. The only way Goodman Brown could have saved his faith would have been to never embark on the dark path.

by John Schlismann

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