young goodman brown thesis

A Summary and Analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘Young Goodman Brown’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Young Goodman Brown’ (1835) is one of the most famous stories by the American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Inspired in part by the Salem witch craze of 1692, the story is a powerful exploration of the dark side of human nature. How Hawthorne loads his story with such power is worthy of some closer analysis, but before we get there, you can read ‘Young Goodman Brown’ here .

Let’s begin with a summary of the story’s plot. We have  analysed the story’s symbolism in a separate post .

Plot summary

In the village of Salem one evening, a young man named Goodman Brown bids farewell to his wife, Faith. Faith wants him to stay with her, but Goodman Brown says he needs to travel tonight. When he leaves her, he vows to himself that he will be good after his business is done tonight.

He meets an old men dressed in ‘grave and decent attire’, as he is travelling on the road. This man has a staff in his hand which resembles a snake. Sensing his young companion is weary, the man offers Goodman Brown the staff but Goodman Brown declines. Indeed, he has honoured his promise to meet with the man tonight, but he has misgivings about it, and wants to turn back and go home. He is a good Christian, and his ancestors were good Christians, and he doesn’t want to get involved.

The man with the staff responds by saying that he knew Goodman Brown’s father and grandfather as well as numerous other high-profile Christians in the state, including the governor himself.

Goodman Brown asks how he will be able to look his minister in the face if he goes on with the business they have planned. This amuses the older man, although when Goodman Brown expresses his fears concerning his wife, Faith, the man is more sympathetic, and reassures him that Faith will come to no harm.

As they walk deeper into the woods, Goodman Brown recognises Goody Cloyse, the old woman who taught him religious instruction when he was a child. As she is well-respected back in his village, he doesn’t want her to recognise him and see him with the strange man with the staff, so he tells the older man that he will come off the path until they have passed the woman.

From the trees, Goodman Brown is astonished when the older man, upon reaching Goody Cloyse, taps her on the shoulder with his snake-staff, and she recognises him as ‘the Devil’. It turns out she is actually a witch (she even cackles) and is accompanying the man to their sabbath!

The two of them talk of young Goodman Brown, whom they will be initiating into their ‘communion’ tonight. Goodman Brown watches as the woman takes the man’s staff and promptly vanishes. He then rejoins the man on the path, shocked by what he has witnessed.

They continue on for a while, but then Goodman Brown has second thoughts again, and sits down, determined not to go any further. But the older man tells him he will think better of it. Two riders approach, who are clearly also involved in the ‘deviltry’ of the night, and as Goodman Brown and his companion walk on, they hear a woman lamenting, and then a scream.

A pink ribbon floats through the air to him, such as his wife Faith wore. ‘My Faith is gone!’ Goodman Brown cries.

Realising all hope is lost, he becomes almost possessed by demonic despair and powers on through the forest, laughing wildly. He stumbles into a clearing in the woods, where a black mass or witches’ sabbath appears to be taking place, featuring many people he recognises, including Deacon Gookin.

He then sees a veiled figure, who turns out to be his wife, Faith, who is a member of the sinful community gathered there. Blood is presented in a bowl, preparatory to the ‘baptism’ initiating the new converts. However, Goodman Brown resists, before staggering against a rock.

The next morning, he returns to Salem village, and everyone from the witches’ sabbath is acting as usual: Goody Cloyse is catechising a child, and Deacon Gookin is praying, while Faith welcomes her husband with joy. We are led to doubt whether what he witnessed the night before actually happened.

Was it all a dream? Either way, he becomes a sterner man thereafter, very ‘distrustful’, seeing sin everywhere. He becomes distant from his own wife. The story ends years in the future, with the narrator telling us that when Goodman Brown died, his neighbours ‘carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom.’

Herman Melville, the author of Moby-Dick , thought ‘Young Goodman Brown’ was ‘deep as Dante’ in its exploration of the darker side of human nature.

The story is remarkable in its depiction of evil not least because it raises interesting questions about what it means to ‘become’ or ‘know’ evil. Young Goodman Brown actually resists the initiation in the woodland clearing, involving the blood-baptism, but the story suggests that this doesn’t matter: he has still come to recognise evil and has thus been initiated into its ways.

If it’s true that the only two kinds of person who are wholly obsessed with evil are the very bad and the very good (in the sense of being puritanical about making sure everyone else is as ‘good’ as they are), then ‘Young Goodman Brown’ is as much a cautionary tale about being lured over to the ‘dark side’, because even if you don’t end up embracing it, it will already have embraced you. The Puritan is as possessed by ‘evil’ as the devil-worshipper they condemn; they’re just possessed in different ways.

In other words, Goodman Brown is clearly drawn to the world of sin and witchcraft, as his meeting with the older man with the snake-staff (the ‘serpent’ summoning the satanic snake from the Garden of Eden, of course, which tempted Eve) indicates. Once he has made the decision to go down to the woods tonight he was always going to be in for a big surprise.

The twist, of course, is that in leaving Faith (his wife) behind, he finds Faith again, in the woodland black sabbath, where she is at first veiled and then revealed to him. (Calling her ‘Faith’, by the way, is an inspired touch by Hawthorne; it was a popular woman’s name among Puritans, but it resonates with obviously symbolic significance in this story about faith and sin.)

‘Young Goodman Brown’, then, is a highly symbolic and suggestive story about the nature of evil and also the nature of puritanism: once the veil has been lifted, Young Goodman Brown sees evil everywhere, even where it may well not actually exist.

This last part is important: although Hawthorne leaves some room for ambiguity, and the narrator himself seems uncertain, if Goodman Brown did merely dream the events of the witches’ sabbath, that raises further questions. He already suspects those in authority around him, those who teach religion to the village children or who dutifully pray, of secretly harbouring evil desires and performing dark deeds. His dream was merely an enacting of these (paranoid) suspicions.

But his conviction that the dream was real, and that his wife, his minister, Goody Cloyse, and the others are all secretly marked by evil, suggests that extreme puritanism destroys one’s moral compass and leads to a life devoid of pleasure or meaning.

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2 thoughts on “A Summary and Analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘Young Goodman Brown’”

The symbolism in this story is as subtle as a ton of rocks. This is not one of my favorite Hawthorne stories.

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Home › Literature › Analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown

Analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on April 28, 2022

“Young Goodman Brown,” initially appearing in Mosses from an Old Manse (1846) as both a bleak romance and a moral allegory, has maintained its hold on contemporary readers as a tale of initiation, alienation, and evil. Undoubtedly one of Nathaniel Hawthorne ’s most disturbing stories, it opens as a young man of the town, Goodman Brown, bids farewell to his wife, Faith, and sets off on a path toward the dark forest. Brown’s journey to the forest and his exposure to life-shattering encounters and revelations remain the subject of speculation. Although his meeting with the devil is clear, the results remain ambiguous and perplexing. When viewed as a bildungsroman, it is one of the bleakest in American fiction, long or short. Rather than an initiation into manhood, Brown’s is an initiation into evil.

Much of the power of the story derives from the opening scene of missed chances: Faith, introduced in the second sentence and given the first words of dialogue, leans out the window, her pink ribbons fl uttering, and entreats her husband to stay. Brown, however, although he continues to think of returning, is determined to depart on this dark road. Almost instantly, he—and the reader—become enveloped in the darkness and gloom of the forest. The narrator equates the dreariness with both solitude and evil, and the aura of doom pervades the story. Along the way Brown meets a man who looks curiously like Brown’s father and grandfather; that this traveler is the devil is clear from his snakelike stick and evident power to assume different shapes. The traveler reveals his role in helping Brown’s Puritan ancestors commit crimes against Quakers and Indians. Brown protests that his family has traditionally revered the principles of Christianity, but the traveler provides numerous examples of his converts across all of New England, in both small town and state positions, in the fields of politics, religion, and the law. That Brown himself is from Salem suggests Hawthorne’s fascination with the Puritan guilt of his—and our—own forefathers manifested in other short stories such as “Alice Doane’s Appeal,” a tale about the Puritan obsession with witchcraft.

Nathaniel Hawthorne. Getty Images

Next Brown hides in the forest, demonstrating his hypocrisy, as he sees Goody Cloyse, a pious townswoman, walking along the dark trail. She and the traveler openly discuss her witchcraft, and when Brown leaves his hiding place, he marvels at his memory of Goody Cloyse teaching him his catechism when he was a boy. Again Brown thinks of returning home to Faith, but instead he still hides in the forest, recognizing many of the townspeople passing through and hearing that tonight’s forest meeting will be attended by people from Connecticut and Rhode Island, as well as Massachusetts. Just as Brown thinks he can resist the devil and emerge from his hiding place, he hears a scream that sounds like Faith’s, and a pink ribbon fl utters to his feet.

From this point on, Brown himself becomes a grotesque figure, throwing himself with wholehearted if somewhat hysterical and despairing eagerness into the center of the darkness illuminated by the blazing fires of the meeting, clearly an image of hell. He recognizes all the most respected folk of the state unabashedly mingling with common thieves, prostitutes, and even criminals. The dreadful harmony of all these voices joined together in devil worship reaches a crescendo as the converts are brought forth: Among them, dimly recognized, are Brown’s father, mother, and wife. The devil assures the assembly that everyone has secretly committed crimes, from those of illicit sex to those of murdering husbands, fathers, and illegitimate babies. Indeed, says the devil, the whole earth is “one stain of guilt, one mighty blood spot.” Evil, not good, he asserts, is the nature of humankind.

As do Adam and Eve, Brown and Faith stand on the edge of wickedness: Brown screams to Faith to resist the devil, and with these words the nightmare ends, Brown awakening against a rock. The narrator asks, Was his experience really a dream? Whether or not we believe in the reality of Brown’s experience; the narrator affirms that it clearly foreshadows Brown’s altered life: Henceforward he is a dour and disillusioned man who sees no good and trusts in no one. In just such a way did the Salem witch trials effectively bring about the collapse of Puritanism, yet the story resonates long afterward: We as readers understand that we are the mythical descendants of Young Goodman Brown. Why does Brown ignore Faith’s warnings? Do we interpret the tale as one of infidelity? Of Christian hypocrisy? Of colonial history? If Brown, as an American Adam, looked upon Eden and found it wanting, do we inherit his frightful knowledge? Or can we interpret it as a cautionary tale, one whose lessons can benefit us as we live our modern lives? More than a century and a half later, Hawthorne’s story continues to beguile us with its gloomy aura and subtly ambiguous theme.

Analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Stories

Analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Novels

BIBLIOGRAPHY Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Young Goodman Brown.” In Tales and Sketches, edited by Roy Harvey Pearce. New York: Library of America, 1982. Newman, Lea B. V. A Reader’s Guide to the Short Stories of Hawthorne. New York: Macmillan, 1979.

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English Composition 2

Student essay on nathaniel hawthorne's "young goodman brown".

(The original essay included a "Work Cited" page, which is not reproduced here, and the original essay was formatted properly: double-spaced, with the first lines of paragraphs indented and no extra spaces between paragraphs.)

Test of One Man's Faith

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Young Goodman Brown," {1} the author uses mystery and suspense to hold the attention of the reader. From the beginning to the end of the story, Hawthorne leads the reader into asking the question, "what does all of this witchcraft, mysticism, and the double-sided lifestyles of the characters actually mean?" The reader must not look at "Young Goodman Brown" as just a suspenseful story but also see the many forms of symbolism the author uses. Hawthorne shows that a strong faith is the greatest asset of a man or woman, and when that faith is compromised, the effects of this can cause one to be filled with doubt and cynicism toward the rest of the world. {2}

Goodman Brown does show he has a strong faith before he enters the forest and sometimes during his journey to the black mass. {3} Hawthorne uses the very name of Goodman Brown's wife, Faith, as a symbol of Goodman Brown's own faith throughout the story. Goodman Brown's strong faith can be seen through the initial description of Faith: "And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap" (140). {4} Hawthorne suggests she is pure and innocent, as is Goodman Brown's own faith. Also, the reassuring replies Goodman Brown gives to Faith suggest that his faith cannot be weakened: "'Amen!' Cried Goodman Brown. 'Say thy prayers, dear Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee'" (140). Goodman Brown sets off on his journey with a strong will and an "excellent resolve for the future" (141), and he "felt himself justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose" (141). Although he knows he is about to partake in a sinful act, Goodman Brown's belief in his faith will bring him home safely and untainted. Goodman Brown also shows he believes in his faith while he ventures through the forest when the dark figure urges Goodman Brown to go with him. Goodman Brown replies, "'having kept my covenant by meeting thee here, it is my purpose now to return whence I came. I have scruples, touching the matter thou wot'st of'" (141). Goodman Brown's "purpose" and "scruples" refer to his good faith. After the dark figure tells Goodman Brown about all of the evil acts he has performed, Goodman Brown exclaims, "'there is my wife, Faith. It would break her dear little heart: and I'd rather break my own'" (142). Again Hawthorne uses the name Faith to symbolize Goodman Brown's faith, and he lets the reader know Goodman Brown would rather die than give up his faith. Upon seeing the town minister and Deacon Gookin riding to the black mass, Goodman Brown once again shows his faith is strong when he cries, "'With Heaven above, and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the devil'" (144). {5}

The characters Goodman Brown sees on his journey through the forest and his experience at the black Sabbath are what cause his faith to wane. {6} When Goodman Brown is initially approached by the dark figure in the forest and is told he is late, Goodman Brown replies, "Faith kept me back awhile" (141). Again the name of his wife symbolizes Goodman Brown's own faith and shows he had to compromise it to even start into the forest. Goodman Brown sees many characters making their way toward the meeting place and is surprised to see that many of them are people of great stature, both in the religious and governmental society. Here, Hawthorne shows that all people are sinners no matter how they may appear outwardly or what position they hold in society. First, Goodman Brown sees Goody Cloyse. She is described by Hawthorne as "a very pious and exemplary dame" (142). Goodman Brown cannot believe Goody Cloyse would be out in the dark forest because she had taught him his catechism. The catechism is the initial schooling of the Bible in the Christian religion. This suggests Goodman Brown's faith is beginning to weaken {7} because seeing Goody Cloyse shows the foundation of his faith is weak. Although Goodman Brown attempts to keep his good faith when he sees the town minister and Deacon Gookin, he shows his faith is weakened when he "caught hold of a tree, for support, being ready to sink down on the ground, faint and overburthened with the sickness of his heart" (144). When he finds the pink ribbon of his wife in the forest, Goodman Brown's faith is weakened even further. Again Goodman Brown's wife is used as a symbol of his own faith: "'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'" (145). At the black mass, Goodman Brown is astonished at the number of people he sees. And even though they are people he once recognized as God-fearing church members and respected members of the town, he sees they are actually sinners, and he describes them as "'A grave and dark-clad company'" (146). He asks himself, "'But where is Faith'" (146). He now believes there is no good in the world but only evil, and his faith is almost completely destroyed. {8}

After Goodman Brown returns from the forest, he has little faith left, and this causes him to see everything in his environment as evil, sinful, and hypocritical. {9} The preacher at the pulpit, Goody Cloyse teaching the catechism, Faith's expressions of love toward him, and everything else that Goodman Brown held with high esteem seem to have become worthless. Goodman Brown shows he has some faith by attending church, but he only feels the wretchedness of the congregation's sinfulness and hypocrisy: "On the Sabbath day, when the congregation were singing a holy psalm, he could not listen, because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear, and drowned all the blessed strain" (148). When Hawthorne writes, "Often, awaking suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith" (148), again, the name of Goodman Brown's wife is used as a reference to Goodman Brown's faith. This passage suggests Goodman Brown still has some faith remaining but his knowledge of the darkness in the world causes him to once again withdraw from the rest of the world. {10} Even though he lives a long life with Faith and has children and grand-children, it is apparent Goodman Brown never loses his spitefulness toward society and the evil in the world, "for his dying hour was gloom" (148). {11}

Hawthorne only uses the magnitude of the journey through the forest and the black mass as a representation of all the sin and evil which surrounds us in this world. Goodman Brown still seems to have faith in his own moral beliefs, but he has lost his faith in the rest of the world to hold these beliefs. Goodman Brown's own lack of faith in the world has made him unforgiving because he believes only evil can be begotten from evil and there is nothing that can be done to change it. Rather than seeing the good in people and their actions and forgiving their sins, Goodman Brown only frowns upon them and believes people to be hypocrites. In all reality, it is Goodman Brown who is the hypocrite because he believes he can pass judgment on those who sin, yet he does not take his own sins into consideration. "'You have heard though it was said, "you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy" 'but I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust'" (Mat. 5. 43-45). {12} The point Hawthorne is making in this story is all people are sinners, and we must not hate people for there sins but hate the sins and love the sinners. Goodman Brown's loss of faith has blinded him from seeing this. {13}

Page copyright Randy Rambo , 2019. Essay copyright of the author.

Teaching "Young Goodman Brown" in High School: Summary & Teaching Ideas

• Trent Lorcher
• Categories : High school english lesson plans grades 9 12
• Tags : High school lesson plans & tips

“Young Goodman Brown” is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This allegory makes a great teaching subject for High School students. Trying to find a lesson plan and winding up with nothing? Read this collection of teaching ideas.

Summary of the Story

Young Goodman Brown plans a late night excursion into the forest, much to the protestations of his wife, Faith. He is filled with regret and doubts, which, however, do not stop his journey into the forest, which by the way, was the devil’s domain in Puritan literature (of course, everything was the devil’s domain in Puritan literature).

Young Goodman Brown meets a man sitting on a tree stump, who we can presume is the devil (note to reader: if the devil joins you on your journey, you’re probably headed in the wrong direction). YGB is shocked to discover his father and his grandfather have journeyed once upon a time into the forest. He is even more shocked to discover some of Salem’s more prominent citizens–Goody Cloyse, Deacon Gookin, and the town minister– have communed with the devil. In fact, everyone has communed with the devil, even Faith.

He begs Faith to resist and poof, YGB wakes up, uncertain whether the entire incident were a dream.

Unable to withstand his loss of innocence, YGB dies a bitter old man.

Suggested Teaching Ideas

Explain that an allegory is a story in which everything is a symbol. An allegory has two meanings: a literal one and a symbolic one. The symbolic meaning contains moral, social, religious, or political significance, and characters are often personifications of abstract ideas, such as charity, greed, or envy. Allegorical symbols in “Young Goodman Brown” are straightforward– Faith, Young Goodman, The Forest, The Old Man in the Forest, The Dark Path , for example.

Create a chart: (1) in the left hand column, list symbols in “Young Goodman Brown; (2) in the right hand column, write what these symbols mean. The symbolic explanations should be more than just one or two words. Students should explain symbolic interpretations in complete sentences.

• For example, Faith represents YGB’s faith, which he chooses to abandon to go on his journey. It also represents the general abandonment of faith in which all humans participate, even the more righteous among us. The fact that Faith herself participates in the devil’s ceremony indicates that the predominant faith in Salem Village has been corrupted by the devil, further evidenced by the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 and the connection between Hawthorne’s ancestor’s participation in the trials (OK, they don’t need quite that much of an explanation, but you get the point).
• A study of American Romanticism helps neophyte literary scholars understand the story better. As students read, instruct them to identify (1) examples of the supernatural; (2) the idealization of women; (3) an impulse toward reform (perhaps the church in Salem needs reformed; after all the Deacon and the minister have a pact with the devil); (4) a celebration of individualism (keep in mind that Young Goodman’s Brown reliance on the goodness of others and not self reliance causes his downfall).
• Instruct students to imitate Hawthorne’s story by writing their own folk tale: the story could have the same theme but with different symbols and setting or it could be a parody of Hawthorne’s.

Sample Outline for an Essay on the Moral of the Story

Use this outline to give you essay ideas for your students:

I. Introduction

A. Capture the reader’s attention and lead into the thesis statement - You may want to briefly discuss allegory.

B. Write the thesis statement at the end of the introduction ( Find excellent thesis statement writing tips ) - The thesis statement must include the moral of “Young Goodman Brown.” Sample Thesis Statements:

1. Young Goodman Brown’s loss of innocence symbolizes the loss of innocence for all humans.

2. Once you abandon Faith, it’s difficult to regain it.

II. Body Paragraph #1 - Topic Sentence. The topic sentence should support the thesis statement (this is based on thesis statement #2). My example - Although Young Goodman Brown is free to abandon Faith, he is not free to choose the consequences.

A. Fact from the Story - YGB consciously chooses evil over Faith.

1. Analysis, Insight, or Interpretation - The analysis must explain how the fact supports the topic sentence.

2. More Analysis, Insight, or Interpretation - The analysis must explain how the fact supports the topic sentence.

B. Fact from the Story - YGB sees many righteous people journeying in the forest.

2. More Analysis, Insight, or Interpretation - The analysis must explain how the fact supports the topic sentence - You definitely need to mention that what YGB sees as a result of his choice causes him to lose his Faith and his innocence.

III. Body Paragraph # 2 - Topic Sentence - The topic sentence should support the thesis statement. My example - The ultimate consequence of YGB’s decision is a complete loss of Faith.

A. Fact from the Story - YGB spots Faith at the devil’s communion.

2. More Analysis, Insight, or Interpretation - The analysis must explain how the fact supports the topic sentence - You definitely need to mention YGB’s encounter with his wife and its ramifications. You should probably tie it in to YGB’s claim that he will resolve to do better (at the beginning of the story) after his ill intended journey into the forest.

IV. Conclusion - Tie it up.

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Young Goodman Brown

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The Hypocrisy of Puritanism

Hawthorne sets “Young Goodman Brown” in the New England town of Salem, where the Puritans tried to create a religious society with strict morals and pious norms, but also where the infamous Witch Trials took place. The Puritans believed that some people are predestined by God to go to heaven, and that those people are identifiable by their morality and piousness; people cannot earn their way to heaven by performing good works, but if they…

Losing Faith and Innocence

“Young Goodman Brown” is the story of how a young “good” man named Goodman Brown loses his innocent belief in religious faith. Goodman Brown’s loss of innocence happens during a vivid nightmare in which he ventures into a dark forest and sees all of the people he had considered faithful in his life gathered around a fire at a witches’ conversion ceremony with the devil presiding from on high. By the end of his journey…

Nature and the Supernatural

Hawthorne uses the forest to represent the wild fearful world of nature, which contrasts starkly with the pious orderly town of Salem. The threshold Goodman Brown finds himself perched upon in the opening lines of the story is not just between himself and his wife, Faith , but between the safety of the town and the haunted realm of the forest into which he ventures. Home is a safe harbor of faith, but the forest…

Saints vs. Sinners

The Puritan religion dictated that everyone on earth was either an evil sinner doomed to burn in hell or a pure earthly saint destined for heaven. To avoid being perceived as anything but wholly good, Goodman Brown (who, like his wife, Faith , is also “aptly named”) is obsessed with the idea of veiling his own sinfulness. Goodman Brown’s paranoia as he navigates the forest, dodging behind trees in terror of being outed as a…

Family and Individual Choice

Young Goodman Brown makes reference to many generations of the Brown family, both Goodman Brown’s ancestors and his descendants. Goodman Brown must choose whether to follow his ancestors’ example, for better or for worse, or whether to make his own decisions and break away from family tradition. The tragedy of the story is that he is unable to choose: he loses faith in following family tradition, but he can’t reject his family and start new…

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