Symbols In Young Goodman Brown

3 Pages 786 Words

There is a fundamental internal struggle that every man and woman must endure. As though it were created in a timeless fashion, man has had to combat, what we have come to term, the forces of good and evil. In a much simpler time, these forces were apparent and obtrusive. They would force themselves upon us - upon the people of the times. In today’s world, evil (and thus good, as well) are less obvious; far more subtle. We must try to pinpoint them and draw them out, ever so carefully, that we not make a mistake and “witch hunt.” We can look back, though, at stories such as “Young Goodman Brown” and pick out, quite easily, the struggle that unfolds within the pages. What we have here is the classic tale of good and evil, fighting to tempt man, trying to break his faith.
This entire story is a symbol, an allegory, for something more set in a mythical mood. Rather than pick apart each and every piece of symbolism in the story, I think it is far more effective to let the pieces fill the whole, and decipher that. “Young Goodman Brown” is an allegory for faith. Moving one step further, this is a story about every person’s faith as it is directly connected to love and, thus, God.
This story begins with Brown parting from his wife. Right form the start you can get a sense of what the theme will be. “...but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street… (Hawthorne).” Enter the element of love, and how appropriately should love be named Faith, for what is love, but faith? It is no secret that at the time of creation, the newly found United States was filled with Protestants, Puritans, and others who had escaped religious persecution. The idea regarding God, as it still is now, is that God is love. Goodman Brown literally spells this out for us: “My love and my Faith,�...