Essay:

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown tale he explains of a man by the name of Goodman Brown who is married to his beautiful wife who goes by the name of Faith. Her names (Faith) along with his name (Goodman) both at first have an allegorical meaning. We can see that as the story progresses these names then turn out to be sort of ironic. Goodman Brown’s homecoming after the events that happened in the woods changed his life forever for the worse. In this tale of Young Goodman Brown Hawthorne tries to accomplish a few things. Hawthorne’s first and most used feature in this and all his tales is ambiguity. He uses this as a stepping stone to fill the audience with an uncanny and horror vibe. Lastly he uses the names of the characters/things in an unusual way as a means of setting up the story and feeding to the. One can also infer that he gives the impression that we can’t trust anyone too.

 

If you are an avid reader of the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne you would agree that he does indeed love to use the names of his characters/things in a literal sense to set the stage. In addition to the tale of Young Goodman Brown there was also The Minister’s Black Veil and The Maypole of Merry Mount. In the Young Goodman Brown there was “Goodman Brown and “Faith”. In The Minister’s Black Veil there was “Reverend” Hooper and in Maypole of Merry Mount there was “Merry” Mount. Now that you see the similarities through these three examples, I’d like to speak more on how Hawthorne creates an uncanny and horror vibe. The word uncanny means to make the familiar seem unfamiliar. He does a great job at this by first luring in his readers through the start of the story. He states “Brown came forth at sunset into the street of Salem village; but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his young wife”(p. 111). This expert gives the reader a false image of perfection or ‘good’ness by first setting, debatably, a perfect mood in the background: “…sunset in the street of Salem village”. Next after creating this background image he has them “exchange a parting kiss”. This almost reminds in a way how the typical working husband with the suit, tie and suitcase and his wife with apron, dress and hair done in the movie would be. Hawthorne then states in the later part of the story “Brown came slowly into the street of Salem village, staring around him like a bewildered man” (p. 123). This description of Goodman Brown seems very different from the one given in the beginning of the story. How is it that this same person that we previously described as “good” is now being described as a bewildered man? At this point I have now realized just how powerful the uncanny can be if used correctly.

This brings me to my next point which is the feeling of horror. I think that this is a given trait considering that we are reading this in a course that’s main focus is on gothic works. I think the horror comes in play when the character steps out of their comfort zone or out of their name. Stepping outside of the comfort zone can be very scary most of the time. For example a shy person that hardly speaks is very likely to be very scared if they were to be called out to give a speech. The horror aspect comes from the “what if’s”. If you skip to the middle of the story it talks about his time in the woods. One thing that is outside of the box for Goodman is him being in the woods in the first place. The woods, especially in this story, usually are seen as a lonely place filled different types of ferocious creatures (the people he sees and the devil like spirits) lurking in the dark. The horror is not only in these woods but in the character of Goodman Brown. As a man of Goodness and Faith (literally and figuratively) he states “I will yet stand firm against the Devil!” (p. 117) which seems like a given for him. The very next page he states “There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, Devil; for to thee is this world given” (p. 118). The horror can be seen in Goodman Brown through this statement because he is saying some that is out of the ordinary according to his character. Hawthorne is trying to put this same horror in the reader by showing us through these two states how Goodman Brown completely morphs into something that he is not. In this quote I think Hawthorne is also trying to show us a little irony. When he says “there is no good on earth” I could not help to affiliate it with his first name. I think what Hawthorne is trying to say is that Goodman Brown has almost lifted from his old self and is now something worse like sin. Goodman Brown goes on to say “sin is but a name”. The question here is Hawthorne and Goodman Brown suggesting that this may be his new name/personality.

With the uncanniness, horror and all the other elements that help to contribute to this I had to then ask myself one question, why does he do what he does. Therefore it is only necessary to dive in deeper to his use of names creating ambiguity. If you were to read all of Hawthorne’s stories you would think it would be safe to say that he will start off with a character, play off his or her name and then flip it to mean the opposite. Then I had to ask myself what if he decided the average happy ending story with Goodman Brown actually turning out to be good. That being said, when reading his stories I feel as if we fall into a sort of vice versa uncanny thought about his ambiguous attempts. Then as soon as we think we know what’s going he then reminds us why the ambiguity is ambiguous.

 

Reflective Tag:

I enjoyed doing this assignment very much because it allowed me an opportunity to look deeper into a story that I really like. Hawthorn’s Young Goodman Brown was a very easy read but I think it displayed some great techniques. I loved how the climax of the story kept me on my toes and guessing at all times. I think that ran into a few problems in the process of writing this paper. The first problem that I found had been my analysis. I found that I was trying to give a summary of the story rather than to dig deeper and provide undiscovered information for those who have already read the story. The next is when I started the analysis of the story I found that I bit off a little more than could handle. I think I tried to pick apart the whole story and not just a few aspects which confused me a lot. When it was all said and done I can say that I did indeed discover a few things that I did not know before.

 

Works Cited:

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, and Brian Harding. Young Goodman Brown and Other Tales. Oxford [Oxfordshire: Oxford UP, 1987. Print.