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Goodman Brown: Existential Failure
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Professor ENC
Silverstein
2012
Approaches to Literature
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Goodman
Brown:
Existential Failure
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Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" is the story of a man's
agonizing existential journey towards becoming an authentic individual, and his
subsequent failure to complete the transition.
Hawthorne deals with the very basic
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tenets of existentialism: good vs. evil, following the herd, and self-actualization.
Resplendent with symbolism, irony, and double meanings, the story is disguised on the
surface as a simple tale about a man's trip into the forest; but upon closer inspection,
reveals insight into human nature and the struggle to balance good and evil forces within
one's self and the world.
The story opens, and in the very first sentence the reader is let known that a
transition is about to take place, as he crosses the threshold, Goodman Brown kisses his
new bride, Faith, goodbye.
The "aptly named" Faith, with the "pink ribbons" IS Goodman
Brown's wife, but she also is a symbol of all that is good, pure, and innocent in Goodman
Brown's world (Young Goodman Brown 165). As her name implies, Faith also denotes
religious or spiritual devotion; and nearly every mention of her name in the story, is ironic
and has a double-entendre.
Faith expresses her apprehension
at Goodman Brown's
departure, she's had bad dreams, perhaps foretelling of Goodman Brown's "present evil
purpose" and he thinks of her, 'Well she's a blessed angel on earth; and after this one
night I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven" (YGB 166). Goodman Brown clings
to his world of purity and goodness, and both he and Faith believe, at this point, that he
can return from such a mission unchanged, unaltered.
The forest itself can be viewed as a symbol of Goodman Brown's self, and as he
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travels deepar In to the dark woods, he's led to greater self-awareness,
into his own ~ubconscious.
as if traveling
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It's dark and gloomy, and no sooner does Goodman Brown
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imagine the (lqVlllurking in the trees, when he encounters the figure of a man, perhaps
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the devil himself, who ironically bears a striking resemblance to Goodman Brown.
He
carries with h:m a staff "which bore the likeness of a great black snake" and Goodman
Brown imagines it to "twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent" (YGB 167). The
serpent often represents the idealized image of evil, sin and Satan; but as a snake
sheds its skin, this staff may also be seen as a symbol of rejuvenation and renewal. The
guide offers Goodman Brown his staff, but whether he sees the staff as being the image
of evil or renewal, he will not accept it and refuses to travel further, protesting "... having
kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is my purpose now to retum whence I came"
(YGB 167). The mysterious figure is a reflection or a projection of Goodman Brown;
what he is or is to become.
He's a guide, the devil's mediator, representing Goodman
Brown's hidden, dark side. Goodman Brown thinks that merely by virtue of meeting
there at the edge of the dark forest, he has kept his part of the bargain, and his journey
is over. The guide convinces him "Let us walk on... reasoning as we go" and thus begins
Goodman Brown's dealing with the devil (YGB 167). Goodman Brown now recognizes
his evil side exists, but recognition is not enough; he must reconcile.
Journeying further into the woods, Goodman Brown encounters a series of
figures significant to him, and like the peeling of an onion, he is slowly led to understand
the nature of what it is to be human, as one by one, his heroes are destroyed before
him. He first meets the chaste Goody Cloyse, who has lost her broomstick -and
therefore must travel to the meeting on foot! Goodman Brown slowly comes to the
disturbing realization that the woman who taught him his catechism is a witch, yet he still
has enough resolution to wonder, "...is that any reason to quit my dear Faith?" (YGB
171). As he's mentally patting himself on the back, for he's still able to look the
esteemed minister and deacon in the eye, Goodman Brown observes those very same
two, as they appear before him. Shocked and overcome, Goodman Brown eavesdrops
as the minister and Deacon Gookin talk excitedly of the meeting they are also en-route
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to, and he feels "faint and overburdened with the heavy sickness of his heart" (YGB
172). Clearly, poor Goodman Brown suffers with his existential dread.
As Hawthorne dismantles Goodman Brown's icons of goodness and obliterates
his world, he also has him experiencing a number of supernatural events.
"It is
noteworthy that some kind of metaphysical rationalism is almost always the background
for existentialism" and Hawthorne understood this and used it effectively (Existentialism).
Dark clouds cover the stars, although, "...no wind was stirring..." and Goodman Brown
hears the voices of his peers beckoning him, yet dismisses this as being, "... the murmur
of the old forest, whispering without a wind" (172-3). The battle now raging within him,
Goodman Brown perceives Faith already lost to him; and as a pink ribbon appears on a
tree branch, he cries, "My Faith is gone!" (173). Metaphysical can be understood to
mean of a supernatural nature, unexplainable nature, and Hawthorne used these
elements to illustrate the ideas that, "... the individual cannon be comprehended
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within a /
rational system and that the universe which the individual confronts is absurd"
(Existentialism 148).
If Goodman Brown's world has been annihilated, he'd better have
some compelling, unexplainable phenomena to accompany this absurdity.
everything Goodman Brown has ever believed in has been ripped-apart,
As
he sees that
"Any established connection between things may break down at any minute.
Order is a
deceptive mask that the universe, especially the social universe, wears" (Existentialism
147).
The last leg of his journey shows Goodman Brown with new resolve as he tears
through the woods challenging Satan, "...come devil himself, and here comes Goodman
Brown. You may as well fear him as he fear you" (174).
Goodman Brown finally
reaches his destination where he finds all the members of his society, from the highest
to the lowest, the "elders of the church... chaste dames" and "men of dissolute lives and
women of spotted fame" (175). Hawthome uses many examples of the union of
-
opposites to illustrate how Goodr'r"an Brown struggles to reconcile the two forces of good
and evil. Faith is led forth by the most "pious" Goody Cloyse and a woman "who had
received the devil's promise to be queen of hell" (176). As the "pious and ungodly... both
saints and sinners" urge him on from deep within his soul, Goodman Brown is
astonished to find that "the good shrank not from the wicked, nor were the sinners
..
abashed from the saints" (175).
A dark figure, the "shape of evil" appears and calls forth the "converts" (176-7).
Goodman Brown steps forth of his own volition, but feels that, "he had no power to
retreat one step, nor to resist, even in thought" (176). The dark entity elicits forth his
speech, proclaiming that all the most highly esteemed people, who Goodman Brown has
placed in higher regard than even himself -are here worshipping, fraternizing with their
own devil. As Goodman Brown, and his society have used each other as criteria to base
their lives upon, rather than living in accordance with their own ideals, they have led
ineffective, unexamined, illegitimate, unauthentic lives. "Depending upon one another's
hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream... Evil is the nature of
mankind...Welcome
to the communion of your race" (177).
Whether either Goodman Brown or his wife Faith finally accept the "communion"
of their race is left open as Hawthorne has Goodman Brown awaken on the side of the
road, disoriented from his "dream".
In the end, Goodman Brown cannot look the
minister, the Deacon, or Goody Cloyse in the eye; and he shrinks from his own beloved
Faith.
He becomes sad, suspicious, desperate, and distrustful, as Goodman Brown is
never able to reconcile the fact good and evil live in all human beings. "The man of bad
faith... is half-conscious
world.
and deceptive; he fails to reflect about himself and his role in the
He lives sluggishly in the swampy depths of self-deception..."
Imagination 16
Perhaps GOOdman
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'bes exactly what became of Goodman Brown.
n did accept his evil communion after all, but he perceives t~~t-
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in acknowledging
the existence of evil, all goodness must then be but an illusion. There
is no way for both good and evil to exist simultaneously in his world.
An existential joumey entails:
...alienation
of man from an absurd world and his estrangement from normal
society, his recognition of the world as meaningless or negative, his consequent
burden of soul-scarring anxieties, bringing with it his need to distinguish between
his authentic and unauthentic self... (The Existential Imagination 9).
Surely Goodman Brown fulfilled these criteria.
though, is responsibility "...freedom
At the very foundation of existentialism,
of will, freedom of choice between good and
evil... Everyone must make the choice between good and evil, and everyone must carry
the responsibility for the choice he has made" (The Existential Imagination 12). Here is
where Goodman Brown failed miserably; he couldn't take responsibility, couldn't balance
the two elements, leaving himself trapped in a "mental prison" (Prisons We Choose to
Live In 107). 'We were created to be free; within you there is deep freedom... In order to
inherit your freedom, you need to go towards it. You have to claim your own freedom
before it becomes yours" (Prisons 106). Goodman Brown was unable to claim his
freedom because he could not claim the good and evil that lived within him and reconcil
the two. To embrace one, either good or evil, meant negating the other. Goodman
Brown, first imprisoned by false ideals, then by his inability to take responsibility, ends up
pitifully sad, for, "The mental prison is devastatingly lonely" (Prisons 107).