The author uses literary elements such as symbolism, allegory, and irony to help the reader understand the theme. However the story does lack depth of characterization, a compelling story, and a point of view that allows the reader to know more of what is going on. The author still gets his point across while using the elements that are shown throughout the story. This short story deserves literary merit because it achieves its central purpose. Which is to inform the reader further on the theme.
The short story, “Young Goodman Brown” achieves literary merit as a piece of literary fiction because the use of symbolism, allegory, and irony support Hawthorne’s theme which is the loss of innocence is inevitable because everyone sins. The story successfully conveys the theme, someone cannot prevent the loss of innocence because it is inevitable, “By the sympathy of your human hearts for sin, ye shall scent out all the placeswhether in church, bedchamber, street, field, or forest-where crime has been committed, and shall exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood spot” (309).
The devil is the one speaking here and he tells Goodman Brown and Faith that they will now have a different look on life. This new look puts an emphasis on the sinning nature that is evident in humanity, and the devil gives Goodman Brown a life of fear towards the actions of the people he knows. Basically, what Hawthorne is trying to say is that everyone sins, “Goody Cloyse, that excellent old Christian, stood in the early sunshine at her own lattice catechizing a little girl who had brought her a pint of morning’s milk. Goodman Brown snatched away the child as from the grasp of the fiend himself” (310).
Hawthorne is saying that after his endeavor in the forest, Goodman Brown, now sees the sins of the people in his town. Furthermore, the characters Faith and Young Goodman Brown are good examples of people who lose their innocence and are corrupted in the story. This is seen when Young Goodman Brown makes his own personal choice to go into the woods, “With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt himself justified in making more naste on his present evil purpose” (300). Young Goodman Brown’s “evil purpose” was to travel into the woods, meet the devil, and sin.
After his journey Young Goodman Brown was corrupted because he never sees the people of his town as ‘good’ anymore. In the end he is unsure if his experience in the woods was real or if it was a dream, but either way his innocence is lost because it was inevitable, “Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting? ” (310). If his experience actually happened then he has seen that all of the good Christians around him are actually corrupt, and he brought it upon himself because he was curious and it caused him to sin.
Additionally, if it was a dream then seeing everyone as evil is all in his head, but that still supports the idea Goodman Brown has a evil side. The author’s use of symbolism in this short story is very important in supporting the theme, “A literary symbol is something that means more than what it suggests on the surface”(274). It is when an object, person, situation, or action represents a different meaning than its literal meaning. There are many examples of symbolism that accurately display the theme, such as Faith’s pink ribbons.
This symbol is one of the biggest ones in the story. Her pink ribbons can be interpreted in two similar ways, the first being that the pink in the ribbons symbolizes her innocence and happiness. Faith is initially introduced as a very pure and religious wife, “Then God bless you’ said Faith with the pink ribbons, ‘and may you find all well when you come back” (300). Hawthorne made it a point to mention her pink ribbons while she was talking of God. The reason being there is a connection between the ribbons and her purity.
Furthermore, when Goodman Brown sees Faith’s ribbons in the forest it is representing Faith falling both metaphorically and literally into the Devil’s grasp, “something fluttered lightly down through the air and caught on the branch of a tree. The young man seized it and beheld a pink ribbon”(306). This symbol supports Faith’s loss of innocence, and also the idea that everyone sins even if they are pure and religious. Another way her pink ribbons could be interpreted, would be she never was pure. The color white usually represents innocence and purity; whereas the color pink is made from white and red.
In this short story the red color could be blood or even the Devil, “What a wretch I am, to leave her on such an errand! She talks of dreams, too” (300). Hawthorne is saying that Faith too had dreams like Goodman Brown’s, dreams that consist of evil like his. So her ribbons could very well represent the evil that everyone has in them, that sinning is inevitable because the evil in someone is inherent. This continues to support the theme that everyone sins because it is inevitable. There is ongoing symbolism with the character’s names.
Young Goodman Brown,’ where “young” represents youth and purity, and ‘Goodman’ literally means good-man. Overall Goodman Brown’s name is symbolic of having a good reputation in society. Whereas his wife’s name, Faith, symbolizes Goodman Brown’s faith in God while he goes on his dark journey, “My Faith is gone! ” (306). Goodman Brown says this when he finds Faith’s ribbons in the forest. What he means by this is that Faith’s purity is gone, and also that his own faith in God is gone. The reader knows this because Faith’s name is symbolic of Goodman Brown’s actual faith.
The importance of the symbolism in the names is that taking something usually overlooked, a name, and turning it into something with a deeper meaning makes it more significant to the reader, and since the symbols support the theme it makes them even more important. Among many other symbols is the Devil’s staff. The Devil’s staff is meant to represent the serpent from Adam and Eve’s story, “The only thing about him that could be fixed upon as remarkable was his staff, which bore the likeness of a great Black snake, so curiously wrought that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent”(301).
The snake on the staff is symbolic of the snake that is in Adam and Eve’s garden. The devil tells Goodman Brown to use the staff so he can travel better, Goodman Brown uses the staff and, similar to Eve, is reprimanded for his weakness and loses his innocence of his sin. Both Goodman Brown and Eve committed sins that were caused by their curiosity. Brown went into the forest, and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Brown’s consequence was to know of the sins of those around him, and Eve’s was to have painful childbirth. The staff helps clarify that Goodman Brown is moving towards an evil path because the staff was the Devil’s.
This symbol relates to the allegory of the story which is a biblical allegory. Furthermore the allegory used in the short story helps support the fact that it is literary fiction. Allegory is “a story that has a second meaning beneath the surface, endowing a cluster of characters, objects, or events with added significance”(281). In “Young Goodman Brown” the author’s use of a biblical allegory helps the reader understand more that the story isn’t meant to entertain, but more to get a message across. The short story is about Goodman Brown who is tempted by the devil and gives into his temptations because of his own curiosity.
Similar to The Book of Genesis, Goodman Brown’s curiosity got the best of him because he wanted to know what was the reality of the forest, which is symbolic of hell, where the Devil can be found. Again, just like in The Book of Genesis with Eve, Goodman Brown is told information that changes his life and his views of others for the worse, “It shall be yours to penetrate in every bosom the deep mystery of sin, the fountain of all wicked arts, and which inexhaustibly supplies more evil impulses than human human power” (309). The Devil is telling Goodman Brown that now he will see all of the wickedness of the people around him.
Goodman Brown is now aware of the sins of others and is uneasy of those around him, even of Faith. Similar to Adam and Eve’s consequences which is painful childbirth and having a difficult time making a living, but overall they learned to try and resist temptations. Lastly the use of irony in the story also supports its theme as well. Irony is” a term which has range of meanings that all involve some sort of discrepancy or incongruity”(334), which is a lack of similarity between two or more facts, as they are not in harmony with the surroundings or other aspects of the story.
All three kinds of irony are present in “Young Goodman Brown. ” Firstly there is verbal irony in the names of the characters. Young Goodman Brown’s name is a perfect example of this because his name suggests that he is pure and innocent, as talked about with the symbolism, but the irony of his name is that he actually is not because he was the one that chose to go into the woods, “My father never went into the woods on such an errand nor his father before him. We have been a race of honest men and good Christians since the days of the martyrs.
And I shall be the first of the name of Brown that ever took this path and kept-“(301). Goodman Brown is talking with the Devil here. He believes that the past generations of his family have been very pure, and that now he will break the tradition. He will do this by continuing further into the woods with his “evil purpose. ” The dramatic irony occurs in the beginning of the story because Goodman Brown doesn’t realize that the man in the woods is the Devil. He is referred to as “fellow-traveler” repeatedly as well as “he of the serpent”(301).
Although other characters recognized him, “The devil! ‘ screamed the pious old lady”(303). This goes to show that Goodman Brown doesn’t see the reality around him because he still believes that he can resist the Devil. There is also dramatic irony when Hawthorne describes the Devil as “about fifty years old, apparently in the same rank of life as Goodman Brown, and bearing a considerable resemblance to him, though perhaps more in expression than features”(301). Hawthorne is suggesting here that even though Goodman Brown symbolizes a pure, good man that he also resembles the Devil.
This supports the theme because it suggest that every person sins. Lastly, there is situational irony evident as well with Goody Cloyse. It is ironic that the very devoutly religious woman who taught Brown his catechism is seen in the woods with the Devil as a witch, “Goodman Brown recognized the very pious and exemplary dame who had taught him his catechism in youth and was still his moral and spiritual advisor”(302). Again this supports the theme of the story because Goody Cloyse is a pious woman who as of now, in Brown’s eyes, has sinned.
This short story deserves literary merit because Hawthorne powerfully used symbolism, irony, and allegory support the theme. The theme is that the loss of innocence is inevitable because everyone sins. The author used symbols such as the characters’ names, Faith’s pink ribbons, and the devil’s staff to help support the theme, as well as having a biblical allegory regarding Adam and Eve that is similar to the plot of his short story. In both stories the character’s curiosity caused them to sin by listening to the Devil, the serpent man.
In the end of “Young Goodman Brown,” Brown ends up having consequences from his curiosity because now he is aware of all of the wickedness that goes on around him. Furthermore, Hawthorne uses irony to help convey his theme, and most of the examples of irony in the story have to do with showing how even the most religious and prestigious people end up sinning. Overall, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, ‘Young Goodman Brown” deserves literary merit because it effectively is able to support the theme of the story using the literary elements symbolism, allegory, and irony.
