Katelyn Dunford
American Literature
Dr. Heiniger
October 2, 2016
A Close Reading of “Young Goodman Brown”
            Nathaniel Hawthorne’s narrative entitled “Young Goodman Brown” is one of those stories that could have various different meanings. Virtually, the meaning of the story depends on how the reader decides to interpret it and what they chose to focus on. Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” is such a good example of this because throughout the story, he throws in passages and symbols that if caught, can change the entire meaning of the story. This narrative is cluttered with double entendres, literary devices, and symbolism.
            When first reading this story, you get the impression that it’s about a young man, Goodman Brown, who leaves his wife in the middle of the night to set out on some type of mission. During the course of his journey, he meets up with an old man with a serpent shaped walking stick who acts as Goodman Brown’s guide throughout the remainder of his trip. It is later revealed that he old man is the Devil and that they are on their way to his evil ceremony. Goodman Brown sees many people he recognizes including Faith and rationalizes that if she is going to worship the devil then he is going to follow her. When asked to begin the worship he tells Faith to resist the devil and then suddenly finds himself in the forest, alone. Not knowing if his encounter really happened or if it was just a dream, he refuses to trust anyone, including his wife and lives the rest of his life untrusting and fearful. Within his story, several things define the meaning of the story, but the two most important things are his wife and trying to determine if his encounter actually happened or not.
            The first passage packed full of deeper meaning relates to Goodman Brown’s wife, Faith. There are several passages throughout the story that makes us wonder if Faith is just the random name Hawthorne chose for the wife’s name, or if it’s actually a symbol that represents Goodman Brown’s spiritual Faith. When Hawthorne introduces Faith in the first paragraph he highlights how young an innocent she is by the way he chooses to describe her.
Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunset into the street at Salem village; but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap while she called to Goodman Brown. "Dearest heart," whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when her lips were close to his ear, "prithee put off your journey until sunrise and sleep in your own bed to-night. A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts that she's afeard of herself sometimes. Pray tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year." "My love and my Faith," replied young Goodman Brown, "of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee. My journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs be done 'twixt now and sunrise. What, my sweet, pretty wife, dost thou doubt me already, and we but three months married?" "Then God bless you!" said Faith, with the pink ribbons; "and may you find all well when you come back (Hawthorne).
In this passage, Faith is a common Puritan wife. She is the definition of innocence with her pink ribbons and pretty face. She doesn’t want her husband to leave, but like any good Puritan wife, she pushes her feelings aside and dies what her husband tells her to do. As we get farther along in the story and Goodman Brown continues his mission, he beings to feel bad for turning his back on his Faith. This is where the double meaning comes in. Is he still thinking about his wife or is Faith a parallel into his spiritual beliefs. If Brown is in fact going to meet the Devil, of course he would have his Faith in the back of his mind, but the question is, which one? In another passage, Hawthorne’s symbolism starts to become clearer. “"You are late, Goodman Brown," said he "The clock of the Old South was striking as I came through Boston, and that is full fifteen minutes agone." "Faith kept me back a while," replied the young man, with a tremor in his voice, caused by the sudden appearance of his companion, though not wholly unexpected” (Hawthorne). When he says “Faith kept me back awhile, of course there’s a double meaning with religion. I mean, what Puritan wouldn’t have some reserves about meeting up with the devil in the middle of the night. Each and every time Faith is mentioned, you can guarantee that there is a double meaning behind it. After all, if Goodman Brown becomes suspicions and distant from Faith, is he really in the Lord’s good graces?
            The story ends with Goodman Brown suddenly appearing in the woods alone after attending the Devil’s worship ceremony. After he just appears back in the woods himself, he begins to wonder if he really did “dance with the devil”, or if it was all just a dream. When he makes his journey into town, he finds himself not being able to look at all the people he saw (dreamed of?) at the ceremony. He begins to doubt everyone, including his dearest Faith, and ends up living life being untrusting and scared. To me at least, the thing is if Goodman Brown didn’t have a feeling deep in his gut that he had really taken part of the Devil’s worship, why he would isolate all of his loved ones. It seems like deep down, he knows he did wrong and therefore knows everyone else did also. So, instead of pretending like the whole experience never happened, he decides to live his life always looking over his back for the evil possessed by the Devil. I think his experience really happened, because if it didn’t, why would Brown feel so guilty?
            While Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” is an entertaining narrative about a young man’s encounter with the devil, there is also a lot more that one can get out of the story as long as they look in the right places. It’s important to really focus in and pay attention to the little details throughout the story otherwise, you’ll completely miss the deeper meanings. If you skip over and miss these details, are you truly getting the full experience of reading the story? Some of the deeper meaning brought out in “Young Goodman Brown” are trying to distinguish what the meaning behind Faith really is and determining if Goodman Brown really met with the devil or not.

Works Cited
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown." 15 November 2015. American Literature. 2 October 2016.

Person 1: Carah Dalton

Person 2: Alan Bowen