Nathanial Hawthorne was an American novelist and short-story writer who wrote famous works such as “The Scarlett Letter”, “The House of Seven Gables”, and “Young Goodman Brown”. Hawthorne was considered by many to be a dark romantic since most of his stories are heavily focused on sin, morality, and religion. Hawthorne’s writings bear distinct traces of his New England Puritan heritage, which exerted his muse on the guilt and sin of mankind, especially in the work ‘Young Goodman Brown’. Raised by a single mother in Massachusetts with ancestors who were involved in the Salem witch trials, Hawthorne was very vocal about his anti-Puritan views, with his work often reflecting his complicated feelings on the matter. Several of his stories focus on the animosity he felt toward the Puritan ethos, with “Young Gordon Brown” being one of the most notable. This short story has an overpowering theme that even the people who seem to be the best models of devout holiness can be corrupted, with evil usually taking over.
Nathanial Hawthorn was born on July 4th, 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts to Nathanial Hathorne Sr. and Elizabeth Clarke Manning, along with his two younger sisters. After his father died from yellow fever during his time as a sea captain in 1808, Manning took her three young children to live with relatives who also resided in Salem where they lived for ten more years before moving to Raymond, Maine. Hawthorne Sr. descended from his great-grandfather, William Hathorne, a judge who was involved in the Salem witch trials of 1692, famous for his harsh sentencing, which would end up heavily influencing Hawthorne’s writing and negative outlook on life as an adult. It is said that William Hawthorne was the only one of the three judges to award sentences that did not later express remorse for his actions. Following the death of his father, Hawthorne showed signs of depression with one incident spanning over a year where he was bedbound, despite multiple physicians claiming he was perfectly healthy. It was during this time that he fostered his love of reading, exponentially growing his vocabulary and developing his critical-thinking skills.
Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College at the insistence and financial support of his uncle. It was during this time that he befriended future poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and future congressman Johnathan Cilley. He also met his future wife, illustrator and transcendentalist Elizabeth Peabody. Hawthorne later described his college self as “an idle student, negligent of college rules and the procrustean details of academic life, rather choosing to nurse my own fancies than to dig into Greek roots and be numbered among the learned Thebans.” Years later in his middle age, Hawthorne experienced difficulty writing after struggling to maintain employment. Deeply affected by the unexpected death of his mother in July 1848, calling it “the darkest hour I ever lived”, he took a small break from writing, taking a job as a secretary at the Salem Lyceum. Guest speakers during that season included Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Luis Agassiz, and Theodore Parker.
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After traveling around the United States at the onset of the Civil War and meeting President Abraham Lincoln, Hawthorne became ill, which prevented him from completing several romance novels. Suffering from severe stomach pain, Hawthorne proposed a recuperative trip with Franklin Pierce, despite Pierce’s feelings about Hawthorne being too ill to complete the trip. On May 19th, 1864, while touring the White Mountains in New Hampshire, he died in his sleep. Hawthorne was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts, on what is now known as “Author’s Ridge”. His pallbearers included Longfellow, Emerson, and fellow author Oliver Wendell Holmes. Emerson later described the funeral: “I thought there was a tragic element in the event, that might be more fully rendered- in the painful solitude of the man, which, I suppose, could no longer be endured, & he died of it.” (Miller 1)
“Young Goodman Brown” is an example of Hawthorne’s attempt to seek differences between the good and evil that he believes are in the human psyche. In “Young Goodman Brown”, the name of the main character, Goodman, is a sign that the story is going to focus heavily on morality. In Colonial times, “Goodman” was a more of a way to refer to people than a name.
The name seems to bring into question if he is really as good as he seems. His wife, “Faith, as she was aptly named”, is also immediately brought forth as a featured character, bringing Goodman and Faith together as a newly married couple. From the get-go, Hawthorne describes these two characters as model citizens in a very modest, highly religious community. On the night that Goodman goes into the forest, Goodman meets a mysterious stranger (who is highly suggested might be the Devil himself) and sees a group of people, previously believed to be upstanding citizens, having a sort of séance in a clearing in the woods which was described as devil-worshiping.
Goodman Brown is horrified to see his wife Faith as part of the group. In the end, not knowing if the episode had just been a fever dream or a real event, Goodman Brown lives the remainder of his life in a miserable place, unable to trust the people around him. ‘A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man, did he become, from the night of that fearful dream’ (Hawthorne 315) ‘Goodman Brown now looks for the devil behind every bush and in the hearts of all those around him, never recognizing that his own soul is now hopelessly corrupt and blind to the light and goodness of God’ (Maher) Hawthorne leaves the reader with questions of their own, such as can the trustworthy be trusted? Do all good people have hidden evil agendas?
In the story, Faith tells Goodman prior to his departure, “A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts, that she’s afraid of herself”. Goodman responds by telling her to say her prayers, as if that is going to be all the protection she needs. He even feels guilty as he looks back and is leaving her, referring to himself as a “wretch”. He admits that he knows something is going on because of the fear all over her face, but he leaves anyway. Goodman goes against what he feels in his gut is the right thing to do and continues on with his dark errand. Although he appeared to be resisting the devil from the beginning point, one fact that could not be ignored is that he chose to meet with the devil in the first place.
When Goodman addresses the reason for his lateness, ‘Faith kept me back awhile’ (Hawthorne 306), it indicates that he had already made an appointment with the Devil and strayed from his religious beliefs some time before the meeting was to happen. Similar to what critics suggested: ‘This comment can be taken to mean that not only was he being held back by his wife, but that he was already having an inner struggle with his beliefs’ (Vaillancourt). The fact that Goodman Brown is willing to visit the forest even though he knows what will happen is an indication of the corruptibility and evil at the heart of even the most faithful Puritan.
Goodman Brown demonstrated both innocence and corruptibility. He believed in the goodness in those around him all his life until this one night, unsure of the reality of the event, he suddenly stopped trusting everyone in his community, including his wife. ‘A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man, did he become, from the night of that fearful dream’ (Hawthorne 315). Critics also pointed out that Goodman Brown’s struggle between dark and light uncovers his true lack of religion since his beliefs were easy to manipulate, as well as of the good and evil sides of human nature.
Goodman Brown’s wife, whose innocence is highlighted by her pink ribbon, is a major player in Goodman’s choice to turn his back on religion. ‘Faith! Faith!’ cried the husband. ‘Look up to Heaven, and resist the wicked one’’ (Hawthorne 314). Out of all the negativity he perceived from the corruption of those around him, he still looks to Faith as his last glimmer of light, which is why Faith’s turning to corruption completely destroys Goodman last little bit of faith he was holding on to. Hawthorne suggests that if Goodman Brown is able to be suspicious of Faith, then he has truly become estranged from the goodness of God.
Another important character that impacted Goodman is the man in the forest that turned out to be the devil himself. He declares to his disciples in the woods: ‘Depending upon one another’s hearts, ye had still hoped, that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived! Evil is the nature of mankind’ (Hawthorne 314). Faith and the devil’s actions significantly impacted Goodman’s soul and forced him to confront his internal conflicts head on.
Overall, Hawthorne describes Goodman Brown’s adventure into the woods as a decision to turn his back on what he knew to be true for so long. Bit by bit, Goodman chose to look away from his faith and search for something more fulfilling, bringing him right into the Devil’s lair. Despite his attempts to justify this choice to himself, he is unable to take his wife down from the innocent and righteous pedestal he has placed her on, leaving her as the remaining piece of his faith. In the end, torn between Faith and the devil, Goodman lived the remainder of his life with a faith that was devastated and the inability to trust anyone, showing that even the most devout humans are subject to wavering faith and corruptibility.
