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A Study Guide |
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Plot Summary By Michael J. Cummings...© 2003 . .......It may be simple curiosity that motivates Brown; after all, would it not be interesting to see witches performing their rituals before a blazing fire? On the other hand, it could be the challenge of braving the forest and confronting the temptation posed by evil forces. Such  would
be a colonial American version of a modern extreme sport or adventure.
Then, too, Goodman Brown may truly wish to join the evil brotherhood.
.......In the forest, he meets a mysterious man with a staff resembling a snake, and together they travel on. The man appears to be a devil figure. From time to time, Brown expresses a desire to turn back, but his feet continue to carry him forward. Along the way, upright citizens–even members of the clergy–pass by on their way to the meeting while Brown hides behind trees and watches. At the site of the meeting, he suffers a terrible shock when he discovers that his wife–beautiful, innocent Faith–is also there. When a “Shape of Evil” prepares to baptize the newcomers into “the mystery of sin,” Goodman Brown tells his wife: “Look up to Heaven, and resist the Wicked One.” .......But as soon as those words pass his lips, he finds himself alone in the forest with only the sound of the wind for company. The next day, after he returns to Salem, life goes on as usual, and Brown wonders whether he had “fallen asleep, and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting.” .......Whatever the case, Goodman Brown is never the same again; he becomes “a stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man.” After he dies many years later, he is followed to his grave by Faith, by his children, by his grandchildren, and by neighbors, but “they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone; for his dying hour was gloom.” .  Characters
The action takes place in the second half of the 17th Century in Salem, a town in the colony of Massachusetts. Puritan settlers established Salem in 1626 under the name of Naumkeag. Several years later, the town changed its name to Salem (apparently after the Hebrew word shalom, meaning peace. Jerusalem derives the last two syllables of its name from the same Hebrew word. Jerusalem means city of peace.) . “Young Goodman Brown” takes place around the time of the Salem witch trials, held in 1692. Goodman Brown appears to represent human beings confronted with temptation–that is, he wishes to enter the dark forest of sin, so to speak, to satisfy his curiosity about the happenings there and perhaps even to take part in them. The man who meets Brown in the forest appears to represent the devil; his staff is a symbol of the devil as a serpent. Thus, we have Adam (Brown, curious to learn forbidden knowledge) facing the serpent in the Garden of Eden. It was, of course, a tree–the Tree of Knowledge–that enticed Adam. Goodman Brown is enticed by an entire forest. Like Adam, he suffers a great fall from innocence. Faith appears to represent Brown’s religious faith and his faith in others; her pink ribbons stand for innocence. Psychologist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) theorized that all humans share certain inborn impulses and concepts residing in the mind at the unconscious level. For example, all humans react to sunlight in the same way, perceiving it as a symbol of joy, happiness, glory, optimism, truth, a new beginning, or God. Likewise, humans associate dark forests (like the one in "Young Goodman Brown") with danger, obscurity, confusion, and the unknown or with evil, sin, and death. Jung termed external stimuli (such as dark forests) primordial symbols–primordial meaning existing from the beginning of time. Examples of other primordial symbols you may encounter in your study of literature include the following: a river (the passage of time), overcast sky (gloom, depression, despair), lamb (innocence, vulnerability), violent storm (wrath, inconsolable grief), flowers (delicacy, perishability, beauty), mountain (obstacle, challenge), eagle (majesty, freedom) the color white (purity, innocence), the color red (anger, passion, war, blood), the color green (new life, hope), water (birth or rebirth), autumn (old age), winter (death). Theme 1 How the
Puritans’ strict moral code and overemphasis on the sinfulness of humankind
foster undue suspicion and distrust. Goodman Brown’s experience in
the forest–whether dream or reality–causes him to lose his faith in others
and die an unhappy man. Note the last words of the story: “They carved
no hopeful verse upon his tombstone; for his dying hour was gloom.”
Hawthorne leaves open to question whether Goodman Brown’s experience is real or imagined, as in a dream. Keep in mind that normal, mentally stable people–like you or those around you–sometimes accept delusions, fantasies, or fabrications as real events. Keep in mind, too, that they sometimes see evil in a person who has done no evil. It is reasonable to interpret
“Young Goodman Brown” in ways other than those already mentioned. For example,
Brown could represent an archetypical Ulysses
or Faust figure whose curiosity prods him
to seek knowledge or, like modern adventurers and thrill-seekers, undergo
“extreme” challenges. It is also reasonable to interpret the short story
as a tale of rebellion against established beliefs. Like young people today–who,
refusing to be cast in the philosophical or theological mold of their parents
or friends–explore various ideologies and dabble in nihilism. Brown may
have wished to venture into the forbidden zone, into terra incognita,
to discover the world and its ideas for himself.
.......Puritanism
began in England in the late Sixteenth Century when Protestant reformers
attempted to purge the Church of England (or Anglican Church) of the elaborate
ceremonies, rituals, and hierarchical structure it retained from the Roman
Catholic Church after King Henry VIII established Anglicanism by acts of
Parliament between 1529 and 1536. The Act of Supremacy, approved in 1534,
officially established the Church of England as an independent Protestant
entity separate from the Roman Catholic Church. However, the Church of
England retained Catholic rituals such as the mass and prelates such as
bishops. For the Puritans, the pure word of the Bible, presented in part
through inspired preaching, took precedence over rituals while direct revelation
from the Holy Spirit superseded reason. After Queen Elizabeth I died in
1603, the Puritans petitioned the new monarch, King James I, to adopt their
reforms. In January 1604 at a special conference at Hampton Court Palace
near London, the king rejected most of the proposed Puritan reforms but
he did grant a Puritan request for a new translation of the Bible, which
resulted in publication of the King James Version in 1611.
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