symbolism in young goodman brown
...“Faith”, and the setting. First of all, the name “ Faith” is an unusual name for a human being. Hawthorne named Goodman Brown’s wife Faith to symbolize his childlike confidence and purity in God. In the story when Goodman Brown states “Faith kept me back awhile” (288), was he referring to his wife, or did he sense something was not right and his faith in God held him back? Hawthorne never mentions the errand Goodman Brown has to take so it is left a mystery, but we know he planned for it. From the symbolism in the story I concluded that he wanted to leave his “Faith”, “home”, and “security” temporarily to take a chance with one more errand onto the wilder shores of experience in life. Maybe this is the reason why his “Faith” had left him. Secondly, the majority of the story takes place in the forest. The forest is a very real symbol to test...