"Young Goodman Brown" as an Allegorical Story
An allegory is a work of fiction in which the symbols, characters, and events come to represent some aspect of its culture. In American literature, allegories have often been used for instructive purposes around Christian themes. The story has a figurative meaning beneath the literal one: a story with two meanings. In American literature, the best example of an allegory is “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The story centers on the loss of innocence.
The story takes place in Salem
during the witch crisis and religious disagreements. The allegory
includes Christianity, Satan, and the devil. From the names of the characters
to the pink ribbons in Faith’s hair, this is a religious allegory. The
story centers on the journey of Goodman Brown into the woods to meet
Satan. He is an innocent, yet he has made this appointment with the devil
for some reason.
The trip itself and the scenes that
Goodman Brown encounters are vague and uncertain. Brown leaves his wife to go a
meeting with the devil who awaits him. Brown is late and blames it on his
“Faith.”[Faith his wife or faith in his religion]
This list of symbols and elements
add to the allegorical interpretation of the story:
The snakelike staff-The devil offers
his staff. Eventually, this symbol becomes the medical profession symbol.
Faith Brown- The references to her
by Brown indicate that Brown’s strength comes from his wife.
Faith’s voice- Brown realizes that
Faith is in the middle of the witch’s coven. He speaks: “My Faith is
gone!”
Faith’s pink ribbons-These indicate
her innocence and purity. When Brown sees them in the wind in the woods,
Faith is struggling with her own “faith.”
The basin of water- The basin of
water is reddened by the light in the forest or is it blood to be used in the
ceremony of witchery.
The list of public figures- Those
under the spell of the devil includes Brown’s own family, his teacher, the
minister and most of the prominent people in Salem. These were people that
Brown thought were righteous in their lives.
The black cloud-When Brown looks to
the heavens to ask God to intercede for him, a black cloud prevents him from
being able to look to the skies.
Hawthorne uses colors to represent
various qualities of man: the pink of innocence; the black of evil; the red of
the witches’ coven, and gray for those who are caught under the suspicious of
evil.
When Brown returns to town, the
reader nor Brown is not sure if the previous night’s events were dreams or
actual events. He [Brown] spied the hand of Faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing
anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at sight of him that she almost
kissed her husband before the whole village. But Goodman Brown looked sternly
and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting.
Brown turns his back on everything
that he had valued and loved the day before. He changes forever and
hardens his heart against everyone. He looks for corruption behind every
bush. Young Goodman Brown never recognizes that it his soul that has
become immoral and blind to God.
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