Loneliness is understood when all truth is laid bare in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown. Marriage should be the end of solitude, but for Goodman Brown it is just the beginning. Goodman Brown’s wife Faith is portrayed as a young, beautiful, newly married woman that feels lost with just the thought of her husband leaving her. She says,” A lone wan is trouble with such dreams and thoughts…
.” (Hawthorne 607) She is telling her husband that she does not want to be alone and that he should not go on his journey. Not only will they be apart from each other, but also he will be apart for his vows. The forecast of this story is not the loneliness of Goodman Brown’s wife, but of their marriage. “After this one night, I’ll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven.” (Hawthorne 607) he feels that if he can just accomplish this one task he will never leave her alone again. “With Heaven above, and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the Devil!” (Hawthorne 615) Throughout the story his wife and his marriage are a barriers for any evil, but Brown begins to doubt that Faith is committed to only him. “Look up to Heaven, and resist the Wicked one!” (Hawthorne 615) In the end of the story he feels that Faith has betrayed the vows that they agree to.
“He spied the head of Faith… Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting.” (Hawthorne 616) Marriage does not mean you will have someone to keep you company. Following in the footsteps of Family and ancestors. “We have been a race of honest men and good Christians, since the days of the martyrs.” (Hawthorne 608) They were not what Goodman Brown actually thought they were. “My Father never went into the woods on such an errand, nor his father before him.” (Hawthorne 608) He was surely wrong as the Devil explained: “Your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through the streets of Salem, it was I that brought your father a pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set fire to and Indian village… .” (Hawthorne 609) Goodman Brown could not except what the Devil told him, but he took it to heart,” I marvel they never spoke of these maters.” (Hawthorne 609) Finding out the truth about something or someone that you think you know makes you feel lied to and cast out, making you alone.
The Essay on Young Goodman Brown Losing Faith
In the book Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Goodman Brown wife's name is important to the story because Goodman Brown loses his faith but his wife Faith keeps her faith. The story takes place in a puritan town in Salem back when there believed to be witches. Goodman Browns grandfather and relatives took part in killing and beating the witches in town. The story starts out on a cold ...
“When the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled, and muttered to himself.” (Hawthorne 616) Family does not always mean truth, wholeness, and happiness. It takes a village to raise a child. The community that Goodman Brown lives in is where he want to live for the rest of his life before he set forth on his journey. Goodman Brown tells the devil: “Having kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is my purpose now to return whence I came.” (Hawthorne 608) He feels out of place not being in his town. He knows everyone in the town: “Goodman Brown recognized a very pious woman… who taught him his catechism, in youth, and was still his moral and spiritual adviser, jointly with the minister and deacon Gook in.” (Hawthorne 610) The people that he grew up with were not who he taught they were.
The Devil helps Brown to realize that his village is living a lie: “the devil… then Goody Close knows her old friend.” (Hawthorne 610) Brown comes to a meeting place in the forest and sees all he knows good and bad, worshiping the devil. “A grave and dark-clad company! … appeared faces that would be seen, nest day, at the council-board of the province, and other which, Sabbath after Sabbath, looked devoutly heavenward, and benignantly over the crowded pews… .” (Hawthorne 613) Communities ca also leave you searching for answers and alienated. Loneliness is understood when all truth is laid bare.
The Essay on Young Goodman Brown Faith Devil Woods
Young Goodman Brown Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne was at first a boring read. However the more I read it and began to break it down by sections it was interesting. The short story was written in 1895 it deals with a man and testing his faith. Ultimately this story displays how betrayal can affect someone's state of mind and actions. The story begins with Goodman Brown and his wife ...
Marriage, family, and community are not always what they seem. When one finds that all facts are fiction, the world is full of chaos. Young Goodman Brown turns away from chaos and shuts himself out of the world he once knew.
