Wickedness within selfnot to talk to anyone or trust anyone, not even his wife. “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a short story about Goodman Brown who leaves his wife, Faith to go on a journey into the woods. Faith asks him to stay with her but, he says he must leave just for one evening. Throughout the journey, he meets a fifty year old man who greets Goodman Brown. The man tells him that he knows his father, grandfather and members of the churches. Goodman is confused by man’s words and he wants to return to the village for Faith’s sake.
Goodman hears noises after a while and discovers that many honorable members of the society are on their way to the ceremony of the evil. He follows people to the ceremony and discovers that his wife is also there. After returning back to his village, he doesn’t trust anyone and doesn’t love his wife the way he used too. Even though most people trust the ones that are the closest to them, sometimes those close relations could mislead one’s faith. Hawthorne’s central idea is that by trusting society alone will lead one’s belief to become frail and unsupported.
The protagonist, Goodman Brown is a major and dynamic character who changes from a joyous man into a somber man. He is a young resident who live in “the street of Salem Village” (Hawthorne, 585) and is married to “his young wife” (Hawthorne, 585), Faith. At the beginning of the story, Goodman believes in goodness of his religion and goodness in people he loves but, as he meets the devil, his views on the society changes. At first, he mentions that he “will yet stand firm against the devil! ” (Hawthorne, 590), but at the end he becomes the devil himself.
Goodman Brown reveals innocence and dishonesty as he believes in the righteousness of the people in the society and believes that the people he loved have turned evil. After spotting people of his society at the ceremony, influences him to believe that everyone around him has betrayed him and became evil. His trust on others and himself is destroyed because he depended on the society and now that he can’t even trust them, he is completely lost without them. This story consists of an external and internal conflict between Goodman Brown, the society, and the devil.
At the beginning of the story, Brown thinks he is religious and attends all the ritual but, by the end of the story, Brown is affected by the words of the devil he met in the forest. As the reader know that when he walks into the woods, he doesn’t know that he will meet the devil instead, he says to himself, “What if the devil himself should be at my very elbow! ” (Hawthorne, 586). The devil influences Brown by making him think that the society is evil and “there is no good on earth” (Hawthorne, 590).
He attempts to disregard the devil because he knows that he will not commit any sins and not become evil himself. After seeing the change in society from righteousness to wickedness, Brown realizes that following the society will turn him evil and he wants to stay pure. The narrator wrote this in third person limited omniscient, showing the readers Browns thought and feelings. The narrator never talks about anything that Goodman doesn’t know or the reader can’t predict, he only mentions what he feels and thinks throughout the story.
His attitude after seeing everyone at the ceremony emphasize that he has lost all trust he had in people he loved. He no longer has any faith left in him or anyone else. As the reader can infer that at the end of the story, Goodman Brown becomes evil himself after seeing that the whole society has turned evil, leaving him with no choice. The narrator mentions that he is the only one who becomes evil because the devil convinces him that everyone else is evil. Therefore, his faith is fragile because he trusts the devil in society.
The story takes place in the Salem Village; society of Puritan which is surrounded by the forest. After Brown leaves his wife he enters the forest to take a journey through it. The forest is portrayed as “darkened by all the gloomiest trees” (Hawthorne, 585) to set the mood as eerie and terrifying. The forest allows the readers to sense the fears of shadows everywhere. The forest illuminates by the fire to depict “hell” with the devil. The light brings excitement which keeps the reader interested in the story.
Brown lives a distrustful life filled with gloom therefore; the forest portrays the mood. The setting represents the tragedy in depending on the society which causes fragile and unstable faith. All in all, Goodman Brown changes throughout the story from being righteous to wickedness because of the devil he meets in the forest. He believes that society betrayed him and became evil but, the truth is he believes in the wrong view. Since, it is his job to follow the right path in believing the right view in society, but he goes astray and follows the devil instead.