Would this be a good start?

Young Goodman Brown

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story entitled Young Goodman Brown is about a man named

Young Goodman Brown, who leaves his newly wife to go on a journey in the forest, where he

meets an old man who accompanies him on his journey through the forest. While going through

the forest Young Goodman Brown recognizes people from his life having a satanic ritual and

gives up his faith in God. At the end of the story, it is unclear whether Young Goodman Brown

was literally in the forest or was it a dream. Hawthorne uses symbolism, ambiguity and irony in

Young Goodman Brown to let the readers know the theme; that no one is perfect and that

everyone goes through challenges in their life.

In Young Goodman Brown, Hawthorne uses symbolism to describe Young Goodman

Brown who leaves his world of innocence and finds out that evil has taken over his life. The two

main characters: Young Goodman Brown and his wife Faith have symbolic names. The name

Young Goodman Brown symbolizes youth in the world. Joe Tharpe’s book

entitled “Nathaniel Hawthorne: Identity and Knowledge” suggest that Young Goodman Brown

represents “the young person’s introduction into human ways. It is important that his innocence

should derive from his youth.” (Tharpe 76.) Faith is a symbol of the goodness in the world. In

this story, she represents heaven. Also, she symbolizes Brown's spiritual faith. When Young

Goodman sees Faith in the forest at the satanic ritual he says “My faith is gone.” (Hawthorne 611)

He realizes that he has lost wife and also his faith in God.

Hawthorne intentionally uses ambiguity to make certain parts of the story unclear to the readers

so that they do not know what is going on. Ambiguity can be defined as something that has a double

meaning or is unclear. Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown is ambiguous in many ways,

including his uses of the word faith, and the uncertainty of why Young Goodman Brown entered the forest.

The first way Hawthorne shows ambiguity is the use of the word faith. The word

faith has a double meaning in “Young Goodman Brown.” It is used to as his wife’s name and to

describe Young Goodman Brown’s faith in God. When Young Goodman Brown meets the old

man, who is believed to be the devil, in the forest, the old man asks Young Goodman Brown

why he is late and he responds by saying “Faith kept me back awhile”(Hawthorne 606). This

quote is ambiguous because it has two meanings. At the beginning of the story, Young Goodman

Brown’s wife, whose name is Faith, tries to stop Young Goodman Brown from going on his

journey. Second, it means that Young Goodman Brown’s faith in God kept him from evil and

going on his journey with the old man (the devil).Later in the story, after seeing his wife “Faith”

as a devil worshipper, Young Goodman Brown says “My faith is gone” (Hawthorne 611). This

passage is another example of ambiguity because it also has a double meaning.

The second way Hawthorne uses ambiguity is the uncertainty of why Young

Goodman Brown goes into the forest. In the story, Young Goodman Brown says “having

kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is my purpose now to return whence I came” (Hawthorne

607). This is an example of ambiguity because we are not told the exact reason why he went into

the forest. There are many questions and different interpretations because of the uncertainty of

why Young Goodman Brown goes into the forest: Does he go into the forest to meet the devil

for some type of satanic ritual or does he go into the forest to finish the journey that members

of his family went on? Hawthorne purposely does this to create the setting and to leave

certain parts of the story a mystery.