Being as my major is psychology I can break this down to a deeper meaning. In a psychology class I learned that our subconscious does try to tell us things that we need to know through dreams for survival. Sigmund Freud has said that our subconsciousness tries to tell us things through dreams. Here I’ll be breaking down the key points of this story of what the true meaning it can have on a psychology level. For maybe we call can understand Goodman Brown better.
Young Goodman Brown can be understood through the Freudian ideas of (ego, superego, and id) for this story.
Goodman Brown is a representative of ego because he tries to follow the social structure of his town and later turns down the devil to join in the unholy congregation in the woods regardless of who he sees.
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Freud’s theories of psychoanalysis are helpful for understanding that this short story is about the damaging psychological effects of repression he has. Brown’s repression is caused by the split between the ways he feels he should act, represented in the story and the way that he feels people really want to act.
This represented in the story by the congregation of the townspeople. His inability to merge the two ideas is what leads him to become detached from society at the end of the story.
Young Goodman Brown strives to hide the inner desires he has to blend in with society. Old Goodman Brown just acts however he wants.
Even though Brown does not know whether the congregation in the forest was a dream or reality it still affects his psyche just the same.
Upon waking the next morning his entire world view is changed by the events he encountered. Whether or not the events were real does not matter because he begins to view the townspeople’s actions as a mask that covers there evil nature.
In the end, Goodman Brown is left empty. His inability to merge the desires he sees in himself and the townspeople with his social understanding of the world leads him to his breaking point. Instead of confronting what he believes he saw. Also choosing to not join in the wickedness. He removes himself from society. By understanding this story by using Freudians’ psychology. Everyone can see that there is a psychological explanation for his detachment at the end of the story.
