Emma Cisneros

Mr. Munoz
English AP, 4th
30 October 2014
Final Draft
The relationship issues of Goodman Brown and Faith mirror those of Adam and Eve. At
the beginning of the stories, they have good, strong relationships. However, making a few poor
choices and falling to temptation turns their relationships upside down. Goodman Brown and
Faith are an allusion to Adam and Eve, both stories can be viewed in a psychoanalytical
perspective to show the weakness of humans and how falling into temptation can ruin the
relationship between a man and a woman.
In a psychoanalytic analysis the ego or the voice of reason is the balance between the
super ego and the id. In the beginning of Young Goodman Brown, Faith is the ego because she
tries to stop her husband, Goodman Brown, from traveling into the woods that night. Faith tells
Brown, pry thee, 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 shes afeard of herself
sometimes. Pray, tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year! She tries to
reason with and even begs him and makes an appeal to emotion in attempt to get him to stay in
that night. When God created Eve for Adam, He did so in order to make Adam happy. Before
Eve, God could see how lonely Adam was. In a sense, Eve could be identified as the ego because
she was the balance between nature and Adams loneliness by bringing him happiness while he
is able to perform his task of caring for nature and the animals in the Garden of Eden.
The story of Adam and Eve takes place in a garden which symbolizes youth and
happiness while Goodman Brown takes place in a forest which represents being lost and fear.

While Goodman Brown is walking in the forest he encounters a man. This man takes Goodman
Brown on a journey and tries to get him to go deeper into the forest, but Brown refuses. While
Brown is off in the woods, after refusing to continue, the devil gets Faith to go to the Black
Mass. As Brown is walking in the forest, he hears the voice of a young woman, uttering
lamentations, yet with an uncertain sorrow and immediately recognizes the voice as Faiths. It is
only when he hears Faith scream that he turns back to go deeper into the woods to the Black
Mass. In the story of Adam and Eve, the devil tempts Eve with the forbidden fruit. At first Eve
tries to resist the devil by telling him, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is
only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, You shall not eat it or
even touch it least you die. To get Eve to take the fruit and eat it the devil tricks her by saying,
You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be
opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad. After Eve takes the
fruit, she tempts Adam and gives it to him to eat. From a psychoanalytical perspective, the devil
plays the role of the id. The id is the base of the subconscious and is house to the primal forces.
Eve making the choice to take the fruit and eat it, then tempting her husband to eat it and
Faith screaming for help which lures her husband to the Black Mass makes them the id in the
stories now. Brown is now following his instinct and just reacts to what is happening, and he
doesnt stop to think about the situation. In the story it says, did Goodman Brown grasp his
staff and set forth again, at such a rate, that he seemed to fly along the forest path, rather than to
walk or run. The sentence is a hyperbole to sow how quickly he let his instinct take over. After
Eve eats some of the fruit, she gives it Adam, who takes it from her and eats it too. Adam
followed his wife and did not think about what God warned them about before or the
consequences.

Now that Brown has fallen to temptation and has turned back, he finds himself hiding
behind a tree at the Black Mass. All of the newcomers or converts were called forward and
Brown, unwilling, stepped out from hiding in the forest. At that moment, he is seized and his
arms are held by Deacon Gookin. He looks over and sees Faith and yells, Faith, Faith! ... Look
up to Heaven, and resist the Wicked One! Brown has now become the super ego by trying to
get her to resist the devil and do what is right. He is trying to hold his wife to higher morals.
Even though Adam did not try to stop his wife, he does as she does and shows her loyalty. Adam
and Brown did what every good husband should do, they followed their wives. However,
considering the circumstances, they acted upon their instinct and made the wrong choice.
Faiths actions have led Brown to gain knowledge and understand how people really are,
thus making her the super ego. After Brown passes out and wakes up in the forest he goes into
the city. Now that hes seen what hes seen, he thinks of everyone differently. He now trusts no
one and doesnt seem to know who they really are. He doubts Deacon Gookin by saying, What
God doth the wizard pray to? He is mean to a little kid playing in the street and offends Goody
Cloyse by taking the child from her as she teaches catechism. He is even rude to his wife when
she comes to kiss him. The story says, Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her
face, and passed on without a greeting. In the Expulsion from Eden, after Adam and Eve ate the
forbidden fruit they realized they were naked and became ashamed. Before they had eaten the
fruit they didnt realize they were naked and lived in peace and harmony with all of creation.
Now that they gained this knowledge they had to be thrown out of the garden and suffer in many
ways to pay for what they had done, just as Goodman Brown has been thrown out of the world
he thought he knew once he found out how the people he thought he knew really were. Because

of all of this knowledge he gained, he now lives a bitter life because he has become skeptical of
people around him and has to pay for what he saw or took place in, in the forest.
In the beginning of the story, Brown and Faith are a happily married couple who are
young and love each other very much. In the end, Brown is rude to his wife and treats her
differently because of what her actions revealed to him. In the Garden of Eden, Eve was created
to make Adam happy and she did. After she took the fruit from the devil and gave some to her
husband, revealing their nakedness, they were cast from the garden and had to suffer for the rest
of their lives until their death.