Symbolism in "young Goodman Brown"

"Young Goodman Brown," by Nathanial Hawthorne, is the story of one man's journey to find himself. In it, Hawthorne uses many elements as symbols to add significance throughout the chronicle. The author does a good job of portraying some of the people and objects with symbols and allows the story to become more developed.

Nathaniel Hawthorne uses many people as symbols throughout "Young Goodman Brown," but the roles that are most symbolic are those of Goodman Brown and his wife Faith. Both of the characters' names are symbolic of their personalities. Goodman is truly a "good man." Goodman Brown states, "With Heaven above and Faith below, I will stand firm against the devil" (322). This shows that he is a good religious man with a lot of faith in God. Faith, Goodman Brown's wife, also has a name that is representative to the story. Faith is symbolic of Goodman's faith in heaven. In the tale, when Goodman looses Faith he in two ways. He looses his wife Faith physically to the devil and he looses his religious faith after seeing all the townsmen at the satanic gathering worshiping Satan. "My faith is gone!" (323)

Nathaniel Hawthorne also uses different objects in the story as symbols. One of these is the staff of Satan. Hawthorne describes the staff as bearing the "likeness of a great black snake" (318). This eludes the cane as being symbolic of the serpent in the Bible that corrupts Adam and Eve. This could also show the reader the evil that is involved with the devil character because the serpent is believed to be a model of the devil.

Another object Hawthorne uses as a symbol is the pink ribbon. The pink ribbon symbolizes the innocence of Faith. "And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons in her cap" (316). This quotation is a great example of how Hawthorne correlates Faith's beauty and innocence with the pink ribbons. The pink ribbons are mentioned later on in the story as they fall from the sky: "But something fluttered lightly down through the air, and caught on the branch of a tree. The young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon" (323). This symbolizes Brown's loss of his Faith, referring to both his wife and his faith in mankind.

Hawthorne does an excellent job of turning the main characters and objects into symbols