Morality and Evil in Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

Introduction: Foreshadowing and Moral Tone

Goodman Brown — through author Nathaniel Hawthorne — offers a foreshadowing of what is to happen in this story on page 10, as he walks away from his loving bride of three months. "What a wretch I am to leave her on such an errand!" There was even "trouble" detected on her face, he says, "as if a dream had warned her what work is to be done tonight." It would "kill her to think" what is going on, he believes.

Right away, on the first page of the short story, a morality issue is at play. The protagonist is leaving an idyllic, loving family scene for something secretive and dark. The reader does not yet know what lurks in the night for Brown, but the juxtaposition of the two moods — choosing between sweetness (good) and an "evil purpose," leaving light (pink) for the dark — is enough to set the tone. And the tone is morality.

Hawthorne's Puritan Background and Its Influence

It is worth noting that Nathaniel Hawthorne was born and raised in Salem, Massachusetts, the site of the famous witch hunts and witch trials. His family history is generously populated with Puritans, and these facts play significant roles in his Young Goodman Brown. Hawthorne's writing often involved choices that the main characters had to make — and thus, the reader must make them too. Going to church as youngsters, most citizens learn that there is God and there is the Devil, and we must take care that the Devil does not grab our attention and steer our lives in a darker direction. Perhaps this is Hawthorne's central point, or at least a meaningful sub-theme woven into the larger story.

Good vs. Evil: Ambiguity and the Reader's Interpretation

There are several issues for the reader to resolve. One of the key questions is: how does the author expect the reader to interpret the question of good and evil? To answer that, it seems from the start that Brown is obsessed with purity and has apparently fallen into a delusion, which allows him to undertake this strange, satanic-themed pilgrimage — one that, in reality, he may never have taken at all. Perhaps the author set this up as a dream sequence to show that all humans have a dark side and that people sometimes have little choice but to walk that dark side and investigate it.

The snakelike staff that "seemed to wriggle in sympathy" with the elder traveler's "irrepressible mirth" on page 12 arises in response to Goodman Brown's obvious guilt at the thought of meeting his pastor at church after trekking with this devilish old man. Meanwhile, the ambiguity within the framework of the story keeps the reader wondering whether these events are real or imagined. Yet it does not really matter whether Brown actually was part of this macabre scene, because the author's message is clearly compelling. Stories, like Biblical parables, do not have to be literally "true" in order to carry a poignancy that causes readers to think deeply.

Temptation, Guilt, and the Human Condition

All people meet the Devil in some place or some form at some point in life, and it is always a moral scene — whether the temptation to sin is actually carried out or not. It may be a man on a business trip, tempted by a seductive stranger to cheat on his wife; he knows it is wrong, he dearly loves his wife, and after carrying out the act, he endures guilt feelings that shake his moral fiber for a long time. Or it could be a young boy hanging out in a convenience store, tempted to steal a candy bar when no one is looking; he was raised to be honest, but he covets the treat and wants to know what it feels like to step onto the side of dishonesty for once.

In the end, good-hearted, moral people feel terrible guilt after doing something immoral and nearly always wish they had resisted the temptation. And so, Goodman Brown on page 14 begins to feel pleased with himself for apparently resisting a pact with the Devil. Sitting by the roadside as the Devil walks on ahead, Brown was "applauding himself greatly" and thinking of the "clear conscience" he would have when he met the minister "in his morning walk." On a night that might have been spent "wickedly," he would instead be home in his bed "in the arms of Faith!"

It is also worth noting that the story bears an eerie similarity to A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens — albeit Hawthorne's story was written first. Both feature ghostly events in which the protagonist secretly witnesses familiar people, arousing feelings of guilt, anger, and confusion.

Conclusion: Morality as the Story's Lasting Message

This story — though it does not "prove" anything at all — inspires the careful reader to question his or her moral outlook and values. It should cause readers to wonder if, when tempted (whether in a dream or in wide-awake life) to follow the creed "Evil is the nature of mankind," any of us can truly resist. It should also give pause and prompt the question: does evil lurk within all institutions, even the Church? Readers should wonder whether guilt is so pervasive because evil is ever-present, and whether Hawthorne wrote this story to expose the wickedness of the Salem witch trials. If readers do not ask such questions, they were not paying close enough attention to the story.

Reference

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Young Goodman Brown. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, 1968.