YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN

It is an allegory.
The terror and suspense in the Hawthorne story function as integral parts of the
allegory that defines the story's theme. In allegory-a narrative containing a
meaning beneath the surface one-there is usually a one-to-one relationship; that is,
one idea or object in the narrative stands for only one idea or object allegorically.
Brown is not just one Salem citizen of the late seventeenth century, but rather
seems to typify humankind, to be in a sense Everyman, in that what he does and
the reason he does it appear very familiar to most people, based on their knowledge
of others and on honest appraisal of their own behavior.
Goodman Brown wants to taste the forbidden fruit before settling to the business of
being a solid citizen and attaining the good life. He feels that he can do that
because he has his religious faith, personified as his wife, but to do that he has to
part with her. But this is his grave mistake because evil is overpowering. Brown
comes to doubt the existence of any good.
Brown cannot distinguish between appearance and reality; he takes things and
people at face value. If a man looks respectable and godly, Brown assumes that he
is.
Brown is a weaker breed, because the experience with the hard realities of life is
making him defeated. He has lost his faith.

The Dark – Light – Pink

Ambiguity is a formal device in YGB. See Ambiguity = tracing the relationships
between light and dark, for the interplay of daylight and darkness, of town and
dark forest.
Pink ribbons – mentioned three times in the first pages. Nea the center of the story
a pink ribbons falls/ or seems to fall. At the end of the story Faith still wears her
ribbons. The ribbons are neither red or white, they are somewhere between, which
means that they are ambiguity objectified. They are emblematic of love, innocence,
good, but also they suggest evil, hypocrisy, the blend of good and evil.
Virtues – vices
Faith, hope and love, he has lost these three, replacing them with their opposed
vices, and the pink ribbons serve as emblems for them all and lead to a double
pattern of virtues and vices.
Theme – innocence betrayed: he leaves his wife to spend a night with Satan in the
forest.
After the events that happened, Brown is a changed man, he is never at peace with
himself again. He can never hear the holy hymn without hearing echoes of the
anthem of sin. He shrinks even from the side of Faith. His dying hour is gloom,
and no hopeful epitaph is engraved upon his tombstone.
Psychological approach
Great black snake – Freudian symbol for uncontrollable phallus
Pink – mixture of purity and passion
Thoroughly - nerved-then maddened-by disillusionment, Brown capitulates to the
wild evil in this heart of darkness and becomes "himself the chief horror of the
scene, [shrinking] not from its other horrors."
Though Hawthorne implies that Brown's problem is that of Everyman he does not
suggest that all humans share Brown's gloomy destiny.
Imbalance of head versus heart
After his night in the forest, he becomes a walking guilt complex, burdened with
anxiety and doubt. Why? Because he has not been properly educated to confront
the realities of the external world or of the inner world, because from the cradle on
he has been indoctrinated with admonitions against tasting the forbidden fruit, and
because sin and Satan have been inadvertently glamorized by prohibition, he has
developed a morbid compulsion to taste of them. He is not necessarily evil; he is,
like most young people, curious. His curiosity became an obsession.
Brown is like an adolescent male. His desertion of his wife is motivated by his
compulsion to have one last fling. His failure to recognize himself when he
confronts Satan, or his shadow, is another indication of his spiritual immaturity.
Also, he sees Faith not as a true wife, but as a mother, as is revealed when he
thinks that he will “cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven”. So, he might
expect to be occasionally indulged in his juvenile escapades. But mature faith, like
marriage, is a covenant that binds both parties mutually to uphold its sacred vows.
If one party breaks it, he must face the consequences. (divorce, suspicion, loss of
harmony, trust, peace of mind). Even then Brown behaves like a child. Instead of
admitting to his error and working for reconciliation, he sulks. So he suffers from a
failure of personality integration.
Man, Women, Loss of Faith
Women – possessing knowledge that surpasses that of the male characters in
Hawthorne’s stories.
Faith – not heroic, the story centers on her husband’s rejection of her.
Brown – failed husband, father and human being