When first offered the snakelike staff, Young Goodman Brown refuses to accept it although his does later accept a new staff instead. This symbolizes his simultaneous fear of evil and his temptation to embrace it (Miller, 1991). The staff itself likely represents a tool of evil (Miller, 1991). Similarly, the way that Young Goodman Brown takes the first steps toward the evil ceremony also symbolizes the inevitability of the fall of human beings from goodness to evil when the choice is presented to them. In that regard, the flaming alter also symbolism a baptism of fire or formal entrance into the world of evil in much the same way that baptism represents the acceptance of God and all that is good and virtuous (Franklin, 1994).
Young Goodman Brown's response to encountering Goody Cloyse and realizing that she is already acquainted with the Devil is symbolic of his disappointment in realizing that evil infects everybody, even the woman who introduced him to and mentored him in his religious faith (Franklin, 1994). He refers to the realization about her fall from goodness and godliness when he decides not to follow her in her choice to forsake heaven and God for the alternative represented by the Devil and his snakelike staff. Nevertheless, the fact that Young Goodman Brown encounters here as well as both the minister and Deacon Gookin symbolizes that nobody Young Goodman Brown believed represented goodness and virtue is above falling prey to the influence of the Devil and evil (Franklin, 1994).
The closest Young Goodman Brown comes to choosing to embrace evil is apparently when he believes that he hears the voice of Faith elsewhere in the woods, presumably following the same windy, dark, irreversible trail as he took. Until he realizes that the voice is not actually Faith's, he seems to take that as the last straw, so to speak, or the final proof that evil on earth truly infects everybody,...
Young Goodman Brown: Faith -- the Wife In the Young Goodman Brown, the two important characters are the protagonist, Brown and his wife Faith. While Faith, the wife, has a small role to play yet her significance increases as we closely study her symbolic use in the story. The story revolves around a man's journey into the heart of darkness to discover the strength of his own faith. He considers himself
Young Goodman Brown In the story "Young Goodman Brown," much of the story is centered on Goodman Brown and his struggle to use his faith to suppress his evil impulses and his internal doubts. This struggle is undoubtedly a representation of some of the same struggles that Nathaniel Hawthorne must have faced within his own life in which he embraced the Puritan way of life and its beliefs. Given Hawthorne's background
Therefore in the remarkably persistent debate over whether Young Goodman Brown lost faith in human redemption or not, which critics have apparently quarreled over for a century and a half now, this reading takes the side that Brown did in fact retain some core belief that human redemption was possible, or else he would not have been alienated, tried to save the girl or had a family. The resulting message
As soon as that objective was achieved the whole theatrics was withdrawn. On the contrary it could well be nothing but his subconscious that expressed his own desire to see the world according to that perspective in which all the nice people embracing high standards of morality are all but faux. But it could be safe to assume that the whole episode in the forest was the figment of
) Doubts enter Brown's mind on page 15, as he looks "up at the sky" (which of course is pitch black in the deep forest at night) and doubts whether there is a heaven. But he cries out that he will "stand firm" - so readers know he still hopes to be strong and resist what is happening to him. But this night is not about resistance: "The cry of grief,
Goodman's internal conflict was brought about by his realization that he was vulnerable and can easily succumb to the temptations of the devil. Being in the wilderness did not help Goodman prevent this conflict from happening within him, since the wilderness was obviously not a part of society but of nature, therefore, the wilderness only follows the laws of nature and not the laws of humanity. The wilderness acted as
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