What Is The Moral Of Young Goodman Brown

The story of Young Goodman Brown centralizes a man who leaves his wife and children in order to traverse through the decrepit, ominous woods to participate in a gathering. On his way, Young Goodman Brown encounters a supposed devil, as well as his friends that are as pious as he is, only to realize they are not who he has perceived them to be, and thus loses all faith in humanity as well as those around him. The writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, is renowned solely for the themes of psychological complexities and public morality implemented into his work. His stories typically involve the inheritance of sin and evil within humanity, often contemporary with moral messages and rooms for interpretation of the psychological complexities embedded within
Without the proof of actual supernatural beings existing, assumptions of how they may appear and may act construct the images of a witch or devil. Goodman Brown might have heard about these assumptions, and never minded until he left Faith to satiate his curiosity. Each progress he makes with his traveling companion begins to conform to the idealized version of where satanic rituals may be held, referring to the forest as a “deepening gloom” with a “gloomy hollow of the road”; the mere touch of maple had “strangely withered and dried up, as with a week's sunshine” (Hawthorne). Such a place fits cult rituals by the description given, and it was soon realized that the friends Goodman knew of were traveling down the gloomy path to a satanic initiation for a “goodly young woman to be taken into communion”, which was revealed to be Faith conforming to the religious laws enforced (Hawthorne). Eventually Goodman had lost his wife Faith, which accumulated the surroundings to become more dastardly with an ambiance of “frightful sounds; the creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts, and the yell of Indians…”, assuming to become the next stage of the fear that not only will laws and regulations will force people to conform a certain way, no matter how private one’s faith should be, but also the fear
To him, losing his “faith” to the the cult ritual, had inspired him to conform to the popular morality of everyone bearing a sin, even exhibited in his newfound distrust and resentment against his wife and children’s prayer: “...and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled, and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away.” (Hawthorne). An indication there no longer lives his private faith, now understanding even the most pious individuals are ineluctable from corruption of witchcraft and satanism, credited by the laws enforced to conform a certain way to ensure avoidance from what is considered “witchcraft” or “satanism”. To base assumptions from fear of such superstitions, without indulging one’s defense, is related to Americans wrongly accuse of another being a communist solely out of distrust, disdain, or by what is considered to label someone as a “communist”, thereby having their life stripped away, judged by their peers, and hated by the community, stemmed from the fear of communism. “Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest, and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting?” Despite the ambiguousness of the ending, it is assured Young