"The man who walks with god always knows in what direction he is going"

This quote has a direct irony in correlation to Nathaniel Hawthorne's tale of "Young Goodman Brown". Hawthorne's profound short story is a pilgrimage to revelation for one devout Christian man; the idea that mankind, being himself, is not without sin and far from saintly perfection. This discovery deludes the Goodman greatly. As a result, he alienates himself from his wife Faith and the community he resides in. Hawthorne's usage of allegory and symbolism in this story shows how perilous excessive pride, moral superiority, and religious zealotry can be to one's mortal existence.

Young Goodman Brown is an upstanding man in the community. The use of allegory is obvious in his name. "Young" symbolizes his youth and immaturity. "Goodman" seems to imply that he represents all that is good in man. His wife is aptly named "Faith", which symbolizes his faith in Christianity and commitment to rectitude. His faith is a little blind though; it borders on zealotry. To believe so blindly in the Bible verbatim, one must know that man's innate nature is to sin. According to the Bi

Hawthorne's usage of lightness and darkness show there is no light without dark, no love without hate, no saint without sin. Brown becomes devoid of the capability to understand that to sin is inherent in everyone, most importantly himself. This leads him to a subsequent lifetime of ignorance, grievance, and hatred. By refusing to acknowledge the weaknesses in others, he becomes blind to the goodness as well. "In place of the needed capacity for both love and hate or, in the terms of the story, both evil and good, he develops only a great fear of moral maturity and of the knowledge and responsibility that maturity brings" (Adams 165).

As Brown yells to Faith, "Faith! Faith! Look up to the Heaven and resist the wicked one!" (Hawthorne 269) everything disappears, and he discovers himself standing alone in a peaceful, quiet solitude. Goodman Brown never finds out if Faith resisted evil, or if the ceremony was just a dream. But his aloneness leads him to surmise he was solitary in his faith in God. The cold dew that was sprinkled on his cheek symbolizes the coldness that began to grip his heart. He appears almost devoid of emotion, empathy, and compassion for his fellow man. By refusing to face up others sins, he refuses to face up to his own, never realizing that is a sin in itself.

Brown's intentional meeting with evil says he lacked confidence in his own faith. Else, why would he want to challenge it? Upon entering the forest, Brown whispered to himself that the forest was so filled with darkness, he wouldn't be surprised if the devil himself matriculated beside him. When the devil does appear, Goodman Brown seems almost to have been expecting him. It's interesting to note that the devil's appearance is unmistakably akin to himself. One could ascertain the devil is simply a reflection of him; the self he has been unwilling to face.

Subsequently, Brown's misunderstanding leads to his self-imposed exile from his own cerebral paradise. As literary critique Patricia Marks noted, "In leaving light for darkness, civilization for w

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Approximate Word count = 1393
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)