Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne :: Young Goodman Brown YGB

Young Goodman brown by Nathaniel HawthorneYoung Goodman dark-brown, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a story that isthick with allegory.Young Goodman Brown is a chaste story, which is told through theperversion of a religious leader. In Young Goodman Brown, GoodmanBrown is a Puritan minister who lets his excessive pride in himself interfere with his relations with the community after he meets withthe devil, and causes him to live the life of an exile in his owncommunity.Young Goodman Brown begins when Faith, Browns married woman, asks him not togo on an errand. Goodman Brown says to his love and (my) Faiththat this one night I must tarry away from thee. When he says hislove and his Faith, he is talking to his wife, but he is alsotalking to his faith to God. He is venturing into the woods to meetwith the Devil, and by doing so, he leaves his unquestionable faith inGod with his wife. He resolves that he go away cling to her skirts andfollow her to Heaven. This is an example of the excessi ve pridebecause he feels that he can sin and meet with the Devil because ofthis promise that he made to himself. on that point is a tremendous irony tothis promise because when Goodman Brown comes back at dawn he can nolonger look at his wife with the same faith he had before.When Goodman Brown finally meets with the Devil, he declares that thereason he was late was because Faith kept me back awhile. Thisstatement has a bifurcate meaning because his wife physically preventedhim from being on time for his meeting with the devil, but his faithto God psychologically delayed his meeting with the devil.The Devil had with him a staff that bore the likeness of a greatblack snake. The staff which looked like a snake is a reference tothe snake in the story of Adam and Eve. The snake led Adam and Eve totheir destruction by leading them to the Tree of Knowledge. The Adamand Eve story is similar to Goodman Brown in that they are bothseeking unfathomable amounts of knowledge. Once Adam and Eve ate fromthe Tree of Knowledge they were expelled from their paradise. TheDevils staff eventually leads Goodman Brown to the Devils communionwhich destroys Goodman Browns faith in his fellow man, thereforeexpelling him from his utopia.Goodman Brown almost immediately declares that he kept his meetingwith the Devil and no longer wishes to cut across on his errand with theDevil. He says that he comes from a race of honest men and good