“If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it." (NIV Bible, Gen. 4:7) No stranger to Puritan history and religion, Nathaniel Hawthorne spent many of his formidable years in Salem, Massachusetts. In fact, his great-great-great-grandfather was a Puritan judge who oversaw the Salem Witch Trials. The influence of religion is evident in his themes which are often based on the internal battle of the human sin nature. Hawthorne, using characters and metaphors, writes “Young Goodman Brown” as an allegorical warning to show that sin destroys both faith and joy.
The story of “Young Goodman Brown” takes place in Salem, Massachusetts during the time of the Salem Witch Trials. It is a time where strict moral code rules the land, legalism is religion, and people often look for evil where there may not be. The story begins at dusk in the small town of Salem. The main character is Goodman Brown, a young man newly married to a pure young lady, Faith.
The name given to Goodman’s wife, Faith is a key element in which her name symbolically means just that, faith. Nearly all twenty-five instances of faith are used metaphorically throughout the story. “My love and my Faith”. (Hawthorne, par. 3) Hawthorne defines that the wife is indeed Goodman’s love but is also a metaphor for Goodman’s faith in God. "Say thy prayers, dear Faith…and no harm will come to thee." (Hawthorne, par. 5) In other words, keep the faith and you will be protected. As Goodman departs from the town and begins his journey he says after looking back at his wife, ““Poor little Faith...What a wretch am I to leave her on such an errand!”” (Hawthorne, par. 7) This proclamation implies that Goodman’s faith is waning, that he himself is of little faith. Upon meeting the “figure of a man” who took the likeness of old Goodman Brown, young Goodman gives an excuse for his tardiness, "Faith kept me back a while." (Hawthorne, par. 12) Goodman’s wife did literally delay his meeting and symbolically, Goodman’s faith is what had prevented him from going on this quest for sin sooner.
Young Goodman Brown’s journey into the forest is an allegory of the lure that sin has on mankind. Therefore, the departing scene between Goodman and his wife Faith, foreshadows the evil journey that lay ahead. Faith warns him of the troubling dream she had and begs him to stay and sleep in his own bed. The young husband replies, “My love and my Faith,…My journey…must needs be done…”. (Hawthorne, par.3) In other words, Goodman must take this journey tonight. Metaphorically, the “journey” is the battle of sin that wages on within every man, those with faith and those without. Those without faith are like unfortified cities. Those who are strong in faith are armed with its shield but even they can become weakened and lay the shield down for a while. As Goodman continues through the forest, he time and again considers turning back and yet he somehow remains on the journey. Goodman’s first attempt to turn from sin is his abrupt declaration to the figure, who is clearly the Deceiver himself, “It is my purpose now to return whence I came. I have scruples, touching the matter thou wot’st of.” (Hawthorne, par. 15) Twice more does Goodman attempt to end the journey and twice more he continues on.[1] Finally, Goodman resolves, ““My Faith is gone!” cried he, after one stupefied moment. “There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil! for to thee is this world given.”” (Hawthorne, par. 50) Sin has drawn him in to where there is no return. He madly flies through the forest, nearing the finality of his journey.
Young Goodman Brown allowed his affair with sin to rob him of his faith and joy. He allows who he sees and what he experiences in the forest to change him forever. After witnessing those that whom he thought to be righteous, fall into the clutches of sin, Goodman’s sanguinity withers and fades. He is without faith. He is without joy. He allowed the realization that everyone struggles with sin, Christian or not, to alter his faith in God and hope in mankind. He returns home to his sweet Faith and she runs out to greet him. “But, Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on without a greeting.” (Hawthorne, par.70) Allegorically, his own faith does not exist, and so he passes his wife by. During the Sunday morning service, Goodman sits in the congregation filled with loathe for all of the hypocrisy he sees around him. He sits in fear that, “…the roof should thunder down upon the gray blasphemer and his hearers.” (Hawthorne, par. 72)
Young Goodman Brown underestimates the power of sin as he succumbs to its seduction; he comes out a gloomy and hopeless man. He enters the forest a young and faith filled man. He enters the grave “a hoary corpse” and “they carved no hopeful verse upon his tomb-stone; for his dying hour was gloom.” (Hawthorne, par. 72) Poor, defeated, Goodman Brown; if only he understood the extent of God’s mercy through the gift of Jesus. If only he understood that man cannot save himself. “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” (NIV Bible Jam. 2:10) Goodman becomes disillusioned when he loses sight of that truth. His expectations are unattainable for any man and so he loses his faith which destroys his joy. Nathaniel Hawthorne, must have known that man is incapable of living a sinless life and unable to save himself and so he writes “The Young Goodman Brown” as a warning to the pious religious of his day. “As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one””. (NIV Bible Rom. 3:10)
No comments:
Post a Comment