Faith, Hypocrisy and Conflict As Mirrored in Young Goodman Brown - Book Report/Review Example

Faith, Hypocrisy and Conflict As Mirrored in Young Goodman Brown The doctrines of the Puritan church to which Nathaniel Hawthorne belonged, had a strong element of Calvinism with its stress on total depravity. At the catechism, children were drilled in the idea that everybody was a sinner .It was the prevalent religion in New England at the time of Hawthorne, and many of the writers and thinkers of that period were influenced by the doctrine of total depravity of man which their church advocated. While the earlier generations followed the doctrines implicitly, the newer generations of the nineteenth century started to see through the hypocrisy of the so called pious individuals who were the pillars of the society and started to doubt them. Hawthorne, who was brought up in Salem which still followed the Puritanical beliefs of the eighteenth century, shows the conflict and moral dilemma caused by the hypocrisy of the pious and powerful in his writings. A new historical analysis of the short story, "Young Goodman Brown " by Nathaniel Hawthorne throws light on the conflict caused in an individual by the hypocrisy of those whom he admires and shows how it causes him to lose his faith. Young Goodman Brown sets out from home one night to take part in a ceremony of witchcraft, leaving his wife Faith behind. On the way he meets a stranger who looks like him, and as they proceed through the woods, young Goodman Brown sees and hears many men and women who he had thought were righteous, going to the same witches Sabbath and being on friendly terms with the devil. At the end of his reluctant journey he sees his young wife Faith at the place of the ceremony. He tells her to resist the temptations offered by the devil by looking heavenwards, when he is awakened from his dream. He loses his faith and is never the same man again. There is conflict in his mind when he sets out, taking leave of his wife Faith. When Faith asks him not to go, he does not heed her , but sets out on his mission. "What a wretch am I to leave her on such an errand",(Hawthorne 2131) he thinks, showing the conflict in his mind. The conflict increases when he is walking with his companion through the forest. When his older companion offers him his serpentine staff, Goodman Brown comes to a full stop. He wants to turn back and go home to Faith now. He tells his companion ,"having kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is my purpose now to return whence I came. I have scruples touching the matter thou wot'st of". (Hawthorne2132) The scruples of Goodman Brown grow into full blown conflict in his mind. The story is set in the early part of the eighteenth century, a few years after the notorious Salem Witch Trials of 1692, in which Goodman Brown's grandfather had taken an active part The stranger tells Goodman Brown, "I helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through the streets of Salem "(Hawthorne 2131 ).The witch trials themselves were the result of a changing society of the eighteenth century and the troubles at the frontiers. Nineteen men and women were executed and one eighty year old man was pressed to death by rocks during those trials. There was also trouble with the Indians during that time and young Goodman Brown's father fought against them. "It was I that brought your father a pitch pine knot, kindled at my own hearth , to set fire to an Indian village in King Philip's war" (Hawthorne 2131) , says the stranger to the young man. There is a terrible conflict in Goodman Brown's mind about the moral correctness of the actions of his forebears "The fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he rages in the breast of man" (Hawthorne 2135) The hypocrisy of the so called righteous individuals of the society is laid bare by the walking companion of Goodman Brown. Brown sees the pious old woman Goody Cloyse going to the meeting. Goody Cloyse had taught him catechism, and the hypocrisy of such a holy woman is brought out in the story. The Puritans had very strong opinions of good and evil -with no gray areas in between. This is represented in the seemingly pious image of Goody Cloyse, who is a witch by night, and a pious teacher of catechism to the children of the village by day To quote Darrel Abel, "The citizen of the godly, sunlit town believed that he might easily become the denizen of the dark forest , and that the denizens of the devilish forests by night might dwell under the seeming of honest citizens in the town by day."(Abel 132) Goodman Brown sees many of his respectable acquaintances including Goody Cloyse, the deacon and the priest .making their way through the forest .His fellow traveler boasts that the "deacons of many a church have drunk the communion wine with me; the select men of divers towns make me their chairman" (Hawthorne 2132) He is alluding to the hypocrisy of the men in power during that time. As the country progressed, faith became a rare commodity, and membership to the church stared to fall. Diminishing membership forced the Puritans Church to introduce the Half- Way Covenant, through which children were baptized and allowed to be a part of the congregation. But to become full members, they still needed the conversion experience, "much like the 'journey' in which Brown placed so much significance, the fact that further doubt was now placed upon new members of the church would cause later problems in Puritan society and Salem itself"( McCabe) .Goodman needed to go into the woods as he wanted the conversion experience "In the setting of the tale, Brown would fall under the Half-Way Covenant, and his education under Goody Cloyse in part fosters the need within Brown to enter the forest at night and seek the true conversion experience that would allow him full membership"(McCabe) Thus , though Goodman Brown goes to the woods to bolster his faith, he ends up by losing "Faith" in both senses of the word. Hawthorne has made brilliant use of visual and auditory imagery in the story. Faith the wife of Goodman Brown wears pink ribbons, symbolizing hope. The wood is dark and haunting., with "black pines" After Goodman Brown loses his Faith, he starts to shout blasphemies and laugh fiendishly, "now shouting forth such laughter as set all the echoes of the forest laughing like demons around him" (Hawthorne2133 ) As he moves through the forest, there is "creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts and the yell of Indians" (Hawthorne2133) The conclusion of the story is made very significant by Hawthorne. After he lost his Faith, young Goodman Browne becomes a completely different man. To quote Darrel Abel, "Goodman Brown using the same donnee of historic reality, exhibits the extreme opposite but complementary states of consciousness afforded by Puritanism " (Abel 133) We see that hypocrisy of the holy and righteous among the Puritans caused conflicts in the minds of the innocent people which accelerated their loss of faith. Works cited Abel, Darrel. The Moral Picturesque: Studies in Hawthorne's Fiction Purdue University Press. 1988 Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown." 1835. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Paul Lauter et al. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Lexington: Heath, 1944. 2129-38. McCabe, Michael E. The Consequences of Puritan Depravity and Distrust as Historical Context for Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" American Literature Research and Analysis Web Site.1997 . Read More