young goodman brown
...t person is performing an act of evil (Hawthorne 34). At first it seemed like Brown misunderstood the old man. He didn’t understand that if his puritan ideal of goodness was false that his faith in god also had to be false as well (Lang 90). Finally the old man enables Brown to witness all the people of Salem including his wife performing some kind of evil ceremony with the devil. The result of this experience causes Brown to loose his trust in his community and his faith in god, which leads to his death as a miserable old man. The way Hawthorne illustrates the ease of corruption enables the reader to clearly understand the theme. To give to reader a better understanding of the story the author emphasizes the theme with an exceptional amount of symbolism interpreted from the setting, characters, and the plot. These elements represent concepts such as faith, innocence, and evil. Take the forest for example: it is a symbol for courage, endurance, and a test of strength; it took real fortitude to survive in the forest, and a young person entering this forest would not emerge the same (Lang 91). However, since the story is more symbolic than realistic the dangers are more mental than physical. The names of the characters also played a big part in the theme of the story. The characters, Goodman and Faith, indicate how Hawthorne is setting a religious barrier to stand up against the evil in the story. The word faith has multiple uses in the story. Literally faith is the unquestioning belief that does not require proof or evidence. In the story Hawthorne portrays faith as the name of Brown’s wife. Faith is introduced as a pretty young woman with pink ribbons in her hair. Her pink ribbons symbolize her youth and innocence. Faith in turn symbolizes her husband’s faith, and she could even be thought of as his guardian angle. Hawthorne also notes that faith does not attempt to dissuade her husband out of his intentions through reason but through affection; with her lips…close to his ear (Hawthorne 32), she asks Goodman Brown not to go into the forest on his mysterious errand. Brown replies by saying “ Love and my faith this one night I must tarry away from thee” (Hawthorne 166). Brown is talking to his wife about his faith in god. He is going into the forest to meet with the devil, and by doing so; he leaves his faith in god with his wife. It’s like Brown already knew that he was going into the forest to meet the devil because when he met the man with the snake like staff he was not startled, not even by their similarities in appearance. Maybe that was his errand all along, to face the devil eye to eye. Author Lang observes that the theme of the story is simply, going to the devil. What for? Lust certainl...