Good, Evil, and Young Goodman Brown

Young Goodman Brown, by Nathanial Hawthorne, is fascinating to me because of the way Hawthorne trots out such symbolism in Goodman Brown's experience in the forest. It's said by many folks far more knowledgeable than I that Hawthorne spent a good deal of time grappling not only with the Puritan past in his lineage, (boasting a relative that sat in judgment on the Salem Witch Trials), but also grappling with what his egalitarian, hardworking forefathers would think of his attempts to live off a writing career, and I think "grappling" is the best word used, because I don't think he ever came to terms with his turmoil or came to any "final answers". Young Goodman Brown seems to be very allegorical of this; in spite of all the different interpretations, I don't believe there is any way that one could say for sure whether or not Hawthorne was meant for the reader to believe that what had happened to Goodman Brown was real or merely a product of a fervent, guilt & evil obsessed imagination.

In his essay, when alluding to a reference that literature and writing is akin to dreaming, Borges mentions it would be worthwhile to consider one of the great dreamers, Hawthorne himself. In my own private opinion, I wonder if in some way - though it is probably impossible to determine - if Goodman Brown is Hawthorne himself, especially with the obvious reference to the "evil one"; "he of the serpent", presumably Satan, not only bearing such a close resemblance to Brown, but also enjoying a long acquaintance in his family. Perhaps Hawthorne - depending on where you come down on his view of evil, and whether or not you believe he actually did come to a conclusion about the Puritans - was examining the evil that runs through lineage as an allegory to his own family's involvement with the Salem Witch Trials.

Indeed, the entire story is dream-like, and this story impacts me so greatly, because I think it avoids what Borges accuses Hawthorne of doing - attaching morals at the end of his story, making them fables that either prove or disprove some point of Puritanism. The reader is never quite sure if Goodman Brown really experiences these events or not - though we are given elusive clues like pink ribbons fluttering through the air and shrill cries in the night - and somehow you get the feeling with this story, it's not that important whether or not it actually happened. What's important is what's happened to Goodman Brown, his loss of "faith" - though, to concede to Borges essay, Hawthorne could be accused of some unneeded symbolism with his wife's name. Goodman Brown has no idea whether or not these events have truly transpired, but his dark imagination and apparent obsessive desire to "see evil" - whether or not in his finding out the truth of his friends and neighbors, or making the whole thing up in his mind - has ruined him. He comes home a bitter, despondent man bereft of joy and happiness, and takes no pleasure out of anything, not even his loving and caring wife.

The last sentence works better in conveying Hawthorne's ideas than any moral possibly could, stemming so naturally from the story and Goodman Brown's obsessions: "And when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave, a hoary corpse, followed by Faith, an aged woman, and children and grandchildren, a goodly procession, besides neighbors not a few, they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone; for his dying hour was gloom". In this case, Hawthorne doesn't need a moral at the end of this story to tell us the result of obsessive brooding over evil and its nature, Goodman Brown's depressing fate does that for us.

Stories like The Gentle Boy and The May-Pole of Merry Mount, though good stories, didn't necessarily have the same impact that Goodman Brown did, for me, mostly because of the somewhat didactic nature. In The Gentle Boy, the Puritans are hateful, killing Ilbrahim's father and exiling his mother, the only good found in Tobias and Dorothy the sense by Catherine they had something in them that will sway them to Quakerism - which does happen - and all the kids who beat Ilbrahim are "little devils" who have their learned their hate from their Puritan parents. In The May Pole of Merry Mount, the pagan worshipers frolicking around the pole are depicted as joyous, free, happy - though licentious and probably without the "true love" for each other that comes from a Godly life - and the Puritans are harsh, dark, joyless folks who view such merriment as wanton waste, and think the May Pole would make an excellent whipping pole. Of course, at the end of this story, Endicott - almost as a reverse of Catherine in Gentle Boy - recognizes something within the two lovers just married, especially the May Lord's willingness to die with his bride, that would make them worthy of being spared, and ushered into the Puritan life-style, with more appropriate clothes, of course. They leave the May Pole, and now, though they follow a difficult path, they will now move "heavenward". The story ends with this weird, "The May Pole party got broke up, the dancing bear got shot in the head, but hey - it's all okay in the end, because the young couple were found worthy of being Puritans and were spared" vibe.

Young Goodman Brown just seems to work so much better because you can imagine, perhaps like Dante - Hawthorne putting himself in Goodman Brown's footsteps, grappling with his own feelings about sex, transcendentalism and Puritanism. They way the other two stories read seems to affirm Borges' assertion that Hawthorne was also deeply concerned over what his Puritan forefathers would think of the rather frivolous career of being an author, and that he sometimes wrote those other, more "there's a point to be proven in this story" stories to allay thoughts of his Puritan ancestors frowning across the years at his imagination.