YOUNG
YOUNGAn allegory is a work of fiction where all the elements are
subservient to a single theme by designating them as symbols of
abstract concepts in order to portray that theme. The interaction
between these symbols creates an explicit statement on human
nature or human relationships, usually in moral, religious, or
political terms. In “Young Goodman Brown”, Nathaniel Hawthorne
creates an allegory that encompasses the whole of this
definition.
The most obvious example of Hawthorne’s designation of
characters into symbols for the portrayal of the theme is in the
names of the story’s characters: Young Goodman Brown, Faith,
Goody Cloyse. The names are either ironic, with Goody Cloyse
turning out to be a witch, or literal, with Faith blatently
representing faith(Hawthorne 1991, 50). So when Young Goodman
Brown speaks of his wife as “Poor little Faith” by which he’ll
rise to heaven by clinging to her skirts(Hawthorne 1991, 51), the
author is revealing the nature of Goodman Brown’s own faith:
fragile and distinct from his own self.
The appearance of characters are also acts of symbolism for
telling the allegory. Goodman Brown’s companion is identified as
the Devil by his walking staff, carved in the form of a snake.
Martha Carrier, the consort of the Devil, is said to be a
“rampant hag”(Hawthorne 1991, 57). Deacon Goodkin and the
minister ride on horseback denoting their higher social standing,
and their conversation reveals to Goodman Brown that evil has
infected the highest reaches of power everywhere in New England.
And it is no coincidence that the Devil takes the form of Goodman
Brown’s grandfather, for it is the Devil that describes how he
helped the Brown’s to commit acts of intolerance and genocide
against Quakers and Indians. The sins of the fathers, symbolized
in the Devil’s appearance, come to disillusion Young Goodman
Brown.
Even material objects take on symbolic life. The Devil keeps
asking Goodman Brown to take his staff to aid in his walking. And
when Goodman Brown does take a maple stick that the Devil
fashioned for him, it speeds him down the forest path, bringing
him into such a frenzy that “there could be nothing more
frightful than the figure of Goodman Brown” in his righteous
fury(Hawthorne 1991, 55). Time is also symbolized. Young Goodman
Brown journeys out at sunset, representing the end of his youth
and the coming gloom of his “maturity”.
The symbolism most important to the allegory in “Young
Goodman Brown” is that of the natural world. The sky symbolizes
“heaven above” to Goodman Brown, and with its darkening by the
cloud of “a confused and doubtful sound of voices”, Goodman Brown
feels all hope in faith lost. The wind likewise takes on symbolic
life in laughing in scorn at Goodman Brown’s indignation by its
“frightful sounds- the creaking of trees, the howling of wild
beasts, and the yell of Indians”(Hawthorne 1991, 55). However,
the most significant symbolism of the natural world...
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