Symbolism and moral conflict in Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

¶ … Young Goodman Brown

Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown is a story about a man who experiences a vivid dream in which he encounters evil as well as the susceptibility of all people to evil beliefs or conduct. The protagonist expresses his profound conflict between good and evil as a desire to embark on an unknown path despite numerous obvious hints that it leads to evil, which conflicts with his desire to remain morally innocent, together with his wife, Faith.

Hawthorne relies heavily on symbolism to represent the principal themes and issues, including his choice of names for his characters, the descriptive details about the setting, the clues as to the meaning of behaviour and dialog, and the fundamental conflicts or dilemmas his protagonist faces in his imaginary journey. Ultimately, the protagonist, Young Goodman Brown, experiences seemingly permanent changes in his outlook and expectations of others as the result of his dream. While he realizes that it was a dream, he is, nevertheless, affected by what he believes his dream revealed to him.

The Significance of Character Names

There can be no doubt as to the symbolic significance of character names in this story. Young Goodman Brown is, in fact, a young man who is a good man according to the definition of goodness in his society. The protagonist's goodness as a person is crucial to understanding the relevance of everything that follows in his dream (Miller, 1991). It is precisely his goodness that establishes the basis of his conflict when confronted with evil in his dream journey through the woods.

Likewise, the author's choice to name Young Goodman Brown's wife Faith was equally deliberate, and probably because of its ambiguity in the dual role of proper name and a common noun that is intimately associated with matters of religious morality and is a synonym for goodness or virtue in human life (Fogle, 1952). In the story, Goodman experiences confusion and conflicting desires when he finds himself having to choose to stay with Faith or to leave Faith and his faith in what he believes is good. Faith also (literally) beckons him during the dream when he is on the verge of embracing evil as it is represented in the dream. Obviously, that is also why Goodman thinks he hears Faith calling to him deep in the woods. On one hand, he is apparently hopeful that Faith might have chosen to join him; on the other hand, he is simultaneously disappointed to realize that Faith might have actually had the capacity or inclination to join him in an evil journey (Fogle, 1952).

Fundamental Conflicts

The most important conflict in the story is represented by Goodman's decision about whether or not to forsake all that is good and his Faith (and faith) for what he knows is evil. The fact that he takes hold of a staff (although not the one that he witnessed transform into a serpent) suggests that Goodman was very close to embracing evil.

The man offers Goodman Brown the staff, saying that it might help him walk faster, but Goodman Brown refuses. He says that he showed up for their meeting because he promised to do so but does not wish to touch the staff and wants to return to the village. Goodman Brown tells the man that his family members have been Christians and good people for generations and that he feels ashamed to associate with him. The man replies that he knew Goodman Brown's father and grandfather, as well as other members of churches in New England, and even the governor of the state.

The fact that he seems more encouraged to accept evil when be believed that Faith had joined him in his journey suggests that he was very close to doing so and would have had she been with him (Fogle, 1952). He is torn between his need for her support and his hope that she, at least, is immune from evil:

Certain that there is no good in the world because Faith has turned to evil,

Goodman Brown grabs the staff, which pulls him quickly through the forest toward the ceremony. When he reaches the clearing where the ceremony is taking place, the trees around it are on fire, and he can see in the firelight the faces of various respected members of the community, along with more disreputable men and women and Indian priests. But he doesn't see Faith, and he starts to hope once again that she might not be there.

Finally, Goodman encounters two individuals in his journey who are already known to him in life: Goody Cloyse and Deacon Gookin. They have already embraced evil and this realization disturbs Goodman because it means that nobody he knows is actually and genuinely good; they all have the same fundamental flaw that makes them susceptible to evil (Fogle, 1952). This obviously affects Goodman deeply even after he realizes it was a dream:

The next morning, young Goodman Brown came slowly into the street of Salem village, staring around him like a bewildered man. The good old minister was taking a walk along the graveyard, to get an appetite for breakfast and meditate his sermon, and bestowed a blessing, as he passed, on Goodman Brown. He shrank from the venerable saint, as if to avoid an anathema. Old Deacon Gookin was at domestic worship, and the holy words of his prayer were heard through the open window. "What God doth the wizard pray to?" quoth Goodman Brown.

Goody Cloyse, that excellent old Christian, stood in the early sunshine, at her own lattice, catechising a little girl, who had brought her a pint of morning's milk.

Goodman Brown snatched away the child, as from the grasp of the fiend himself.

Turning the corner by the meeting-house, he spied the head of Faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at sight of him, that she skipt along the street, and almost kissed her husband before the whole village.

But Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting.