Essay About Young Goodman Brown And Downfall Of Young Goodman Brown

Young Goodman Brown
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Jesse Wick
English 260
The Downfall of Young Goodman Brown “Young Goodman
Brown”, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a story that is thick with
allegory. “Young Goodman Brown” is a moral story which is
told through the perversion of a religious leader. In “Young
Goodman Brown”, Goodman Brown is a Puritan minister
who lets his excessive pride in himself interfere with his
relations with the community after he meets with the devil,
and causes him to live the life of an exile in his own
community. “Young Goodman Brown” begins when Faith,
Browns wife, asks him not to go on an “errand”. Goodman
Brown says to his “love and (my) Faith” that “this one night I
must tarry away from thee.” When he says his “love” and his
“Faith”, he is talking to his wife, but he is also talking to his
“faith” to God. He is venturing into the woods to meet with
the Devil, and by doing so, he leaves his unquestionable faith
in God with his wife. He resolves that he will “cling to her
skirts and follow her to Heaven.” This is an example of the
excessive pride because he feels that he can sin and meet
with the Devil because of this promise that he made to
himself. There is a tremendous irony to this promise because
when Goodman Brown comes back at dawn; he can no
longer look at his wife with the same faith he had before.
When Goodman Brown finally meets with the Devil, he
declares that the reason he was late was because “Faith kept
me back awhile.” This statement has a double meaning
because his wife physically prevented him from being on
time for his meeting with the devil, but his faith to God i
psychologically delayed his meeting with the devil. The Devil
had with him a staff that “bore the likeness of a great black
snake”. The staff which looked like a snake is a reference to
the snake in the story of Adam and Eve. The snake led
Adam and Eve to their destruction by leading them to the
Tree of Knowledge. The Adam and Eve story is similar to
Goodman Brown in that they are both seeking unfathomable
amounts of knowledge. Once Adam and Eve ate from the
Tree of Knowledge they were expelled from their paradise.
The Devils staff eventually leads Goodman Brown to the
Devils ceremony which destroys Goodman Browns faith in
his fellow man, therefore expelling him from his utopia.
Goodman Brown almost immediately declares that he kept
his meeting with the Devil and no longer wishes to continue
on his errand with the Devil. He says that he comes from a
“race of honest men and good Christians” and that his father
had never gone on this errand and nor will he. The Devil is
quick to point out however that he was with his father and
grandfather when they were flogging a woman or burning an
Indian village, respectively. These acts are ironic in that they
were bad deeds done in the name of good, and it shows that
he does not come from “good Christians.” When Goodman
Browns first excuse not to carry on with