Coming of Age - Faith or Tempation - Research Paper Example

A number of elements in the story bear great resemblance to the life of Hawthorne. The psychoanalytic exploration of this story allows the critic to look into Hawthorne’s personal life and his past on a number of counts. The changes in Young Goodman Brown’s life can be likened to the changes in Hawthorne’s own life. Before proceeding further, it is necessary to relate that Hawthorne’s great great-grandfather John Hawthorne served as a judge during the witch hunt trials at Salem. This part of his family past affected Hawthorne throughout his life including his works.

Most of Hawthorne’s works related to Puritanical themes are featured in Salem and are somehow related to the witch trials as well. It has been suggested that by penning this story, Hawthorne was indirectly trying to justify the actions of his forefathers. Hawthorne’s story implies that ordinary people can be turned into witches through satanic initiation. This would in turn indicate that the hunting of witches and their trials would be justified in Hawthorne’s eyes (Mellow 60). Hawthorne’s attempts at personal justification were not new.

In this regard, it must be related that Hawthorne’s original family name was Hathorne. . Over the course of the story, Goodman Brown loses faith in the goodness of his forefathers and tends to separate himself from their identity. In this regard, it is noticeable that Goodman Brown tends to isolate himself socially from his family and his community as the story proceeds. This in itself tends to mirror Hawthorne’s connection to his family that loosened up over time. Hawthorne was a staunch anti-Puritan and his work reflects this in detail.

This projection stood in direct contrast to Hawthorne’s Puritanical family roots. Since Hawthorne was not highly proud of his family roots, he signals his shunning of social authority in “Young Goodman Brown” by rejecting the grave ritual of initiation. Goodman Brown is shown in the story as being initiated with pressure from “his own dead father” and mother as well as the mention of his grandfather. Even with this amount of social pressure, Goodman Brown refuses to bow down to social authority and instead leaves.

The literary work of Hawthorne is clear proof that he had rejected his Puritanical roots much like Goodman Brown. The use of imagery and symbolism such as representing Goodman Brown’s ancestors as the devil reflect Hawthorne’s ideas on his own ancestors. In the later part of his life, Hawthorne openly admitted to his ancestors being wrong about witches and their treatment of such people. Hawthorne notes in his book The Scarlet Letter that his first ancestor to set foot on American soil William Hawthorne was just as evil as his great great-grandfather who had conducted the Salem witch trials (Hawthorne).

The actions of his ancestors appeared as hypocritical to Hawthorne. Hawthorne saw the