The Loss of Innocence in Young Goodman Brown

Young Goodman Brown shows how one man's mind can play tricks on him. Nathaniel Hawthorne never reveals whether Goodman Brown really experiences that night, or if it was all his imagination. But either way, it changed his view of everybody and everything he knew. It was the night that Goodman Brown lost his innocence. Jeffery Maass states in his essay for Michelle Maynard that the definition of loss of innocence is "...when those that do not know something horrible or do not believe in its existence come to an understanding of that horrible thing that forever changes them" (Maass, 2).

From the beginning, Hawthorne uses symbolism to suggest Brown's innocent ideas of the world in general, and his neighborhood in specific. All the characters in Young Goodman Brown are symbols of Brown's personality, life, religion, and innocence. Gilberto Segura says in "The Allegorical Goodman Brown" that "The names of the characters alone serve as an indication of what Hawthorne puts as an obvious religious allegory with the Goodman and faith soon to be pitted against an unspeakable horror" (Segura, 1). Each character represents one if not more of these symbols.

Goodman Brown represents you and me, the everyman, the ordinary man of that time. At the beginning of the story, Brown has to begin a journey. Bert A. Mikosh suggest in his essay, "A View of Young Goodman" Brown, that at the beginning of the story that Goodman Brown "... is happy with the locals and his faith until his trip..." (Mikosh, 1). and that he "...knows what he must do but dreads the deed" (Mikosh, 1). This beginning of the trip represents the beginning of adulthood, where every person must learn of the world and all of its aspects, both good and evil. Childhood tends to be a happy time for most and we tend to dread leaving childhood though we also want to grow up. Goodman Brown dreaded leaving on his trip, leaving everything he knew, but he also knew he had to go, and even wanted to go.

His wife, Faith, represents two things: the ordinary woman in that time, and his faith in his religion. When Goodman Brown starts out his journey, he has his faith. In fact he says that when he returns from his journey that he will "cling to her skirts and follow her to Heaven" (Hawthorne, 191). At this point in the story, she is as innocent as Brown. That is because Hawthorne is trying to show that Brown's faith is a faith of innocence, and not a faith that has passed the tests of life. This journey is the testing of Brown's faith in himself, in his religion, in his life.

On this journey, the first person he comes across is the companion. The companion represents three things: the Puritan devil, everyone's ability to do evil, and on a less sinister note - knowledge. The companion takes Goodman Brown on a journey of discovery. Brown discovers the knowledge of what the world is really like. Maass states that "... the devil puts it upon himself to rectify this lack of understanding by informing those who had hoped for good, that their very nature is evil" (Maass, 2). His childhood innocence cannot bear up under the knowledge of life. The companion also shows Brown how what he perceived his neighbors to be, is not what they really are, and that we are all capable of doing evil.

The first neighbor the companion and Brown run into is Goody Cloyse. Even Goody Cloyse who was Brown's catechism teacher from his childhood is friendly with the companion. Goody Cloyse represents Brown's childhood, and his childish perception of life. Once his childhood and childish perceptions (Goody Cloyse) met with the knowledge of everyone's ability to do evil (the companion), he lost his childish perceptions. Next they meet up with Deacon Gookin and the minister. Deacon Gookin and the minister represent Brown's religion itself. They also have fallen to the devil. Even after hearing that they also were fallen to the devil, Brown cries, "With heaven above, and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the devil" (Hawthorne, 195). After that Brown hears voices in the woods, and even at one point thinks he hears the voice of his wife.

Then Brown arrives at the clearing. There he sees everyone from the governor's wife to the local prositutes to the Indian priests. These people represent different parts of Browns personality. There the two innocents, Brown and Faith, are initiated into the circle of knowledge. Hawthorne never lets on whether Faith accepts the initiation. But Brown denies it. The next thing Brown knows, he awakens in the forest and his whole perception on life is changed. This whole aspect of the story is the final catalyst to the change of Brown's view of life. The final act that forever keeps Brown from returning to childhood and innocence.

The story itself represents the changes in a man's outlook when his world as he perceives it changes due to a loss of innocence. Things are not always as they seem. Goodman Brown no longer has the innocent image of everything being good in the world, and now knows that even people close to him, himself included, are capable of great evil. This is a combination of a rite of passage and also a test of faith. He loses his innocence, ignorance, and outlook on life. And though he keeps his faith, it takes a great beating that it never really recovers from. To his dying day, he questions his faith, and the faith of those around him.

Works Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Young Goodman Brown. © 1835 taken from Beaty, Jerome and Hunter, J. Paul, The Norton Introduction To Literature-Shorter Seventh Edition, © 1998 by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Maass, Jeffery, "Essay for Michelle Maynard", http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~mmaynard/316s/papers/jeff.html, 26 February 1996

Mikosh, Bert A., "A view of Young Goodman Brown", http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~daniel/amlit/goodman/ygbmikosh.html, 3 September 1996

Segura, Gilberto, "The Allegorical Goodman Brown", http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~daniel/amlit/goodman/hellish.html, September 1996