Critical Responses to Young Goodman Brown

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Critical Responses to Young Goodman Brown Critical Responses to Young Goodman Brown Traditional Approaches to “Young Goodman Brown” “Young Goodman Brown,” universally acclaimed as one of Hawthorne’s best short stories, presents the student with not only several possible meanings but several rather ambiguous meanings. D. M. McKeithan lists the suggestions that have been advanced as “the theme” of the story: “the reality of sin, the pervasiveness of evil, the secret sin and hypocrisy of all persons, the hypocrisy of Puritanism, the results of doubt or disbelief, the devastating effects of moral scepticism,. the demoralizing effects of the discovery that all men are sinners and hypocrites” (93). Admittedly, these themes are not as diverse as they might at first appear. They are, with the possible exception of the one specifically mentioning Puritanism, quite closely related. But meaning is not restricted to theme, and there are other ambivalences in the story that make its meanings both rich and elusive. After taking into account some matters of text and genre, we shall look at “Young Goodman Brown” from our traditional perspectives. 1. The Text of the Story Textually, “Young Goodman Brown,” first published in 1835 in the New England Magazine, presents relatively few problems. Obsolete words in the story like “wot’st” (know), “Goody” (Goodwife, or Mrs.), and “Goodman” (Mr.) are defined in most desk dictionaries, and none of the other words has undergone radical semantic change. Nevertheless, as we have seen, although a literary work may have been written in a day when printing had reached a high degree of accuracy, a perfect text is by no means a foregone conclusion. With Hawthorne, as with other authors, scholars are constantly working on more accurate texts. For example, the first edition of this handbook used a version of “Young Goodman Brown” that contained at least two substantive variants. About three-fourths of the way through the story the phase “unconcerted wilderness” appeared. David Levin points out that nineteen years after Hawthorne’s death, a version of the story edited by George P. Lathrop printed “unconcerted” for the first time: every version before then, including Hawthorne’s last revision, had had “unconverted.” In that same paragraph the first edition of this handbook printed “figure” as opposed to “apparition,” the word that Levin tells us occurred in the first published versions of the story (346, n.8). Obviously, significant interpretive differences could hinge on which words are employed in these contexts. 2. The Genre and the Plot of the Story “Young Goodman Brown” is a short story; that is, it is a relatively brief narrative of prose fiction (ranging in length from five hundred to twenty thousand words) characterized by considerably more unity and compression in all its parts than the novel – in theme, plot, structure, character, setting, and mood. In the story we are considering, the situation is this: one evening near sunset sometime in the late seventeenth century, Goodman Brown, a young man who has been married only three months, prepares to leave his home in Salem, Massachusetts, and his pretty young bride, Faith, to go into the forest and spend the night on some mission that he will not disclose other than to say that it must be performed between sunset and sunrise. Although Faith has strong forebodings about his journey and pleads with him to postpone it, Brown is adamant and sets off. His business is evil by his own admission; he does not state what it is specifically, but it becomes apparent to the reader that it involves attending a witches’ Sabbath in the forest, a remarkable action in view of the picture of Brown, drawn early in the story, as a professing Christian who admonishes his wife to pray and who intends to lead an exemplary life after this one night. The rising action begins when Brown, having left the village, enters the dark, gloomy, and probably haunted forest. He has not gone far before he meets the Devil in the form of a middle-aged, respectable-looking man with whom Brown has made a bargain to accompany on his journey. Perhaps the full realization of who his companion is and what the night may hold in store for him now dawns on Brown, for he makes an effort to return to Salem. It is at best a feeble attempt, however, for, though the Devil does not try to detain him, Brown continues walking with him deeper into the forest. As they go, the Devil shocks Goodman Brown by telling him that his (Brown’s) ancestors were religious bigots, cruel exploiters, and practitioners of the black art – in short, full-fledged servants of the Devil. Further, the young man is told that the very pillars of New England society, church, and state are witches (creatures actually in league with the Devil), lechers, blasphemers, and collaborators with the Devil. Indeed, he sees his childhood Sunday School teacher, now a witch, and overhears the voices of his minister and a deacon of his church as they ride past conversing about the diabolical communion service to which both they and he are going. Clinging to the notion that he may still save himself from this breakup of his world, Goodman Brown attempts to pray, but stops when a cloud suddenly darkens the sky. A babel of voices seems to issue from the cloud, many recognizable to Brown as belonging to godly persons, among them his wife. After the cloud has passed, a pink ribbon such as Faith wears in her cap flutters to the ground. Upon seeing it, Goodman Brown is plunged into despair and hastens toward the witches’ assembly. Once there, he is confronted with a congregation made up of the wicked and those whom Brown had always assumed to be righteous. As he is led to the altar to be received into this fellowship of the lost, he is joined by Faith. The climax of the story comes just before they receive the sacrament of baptism: Brown cries to his wife to look heavenward and save herself. In the next moment he finds himself alone. The denouement (resolution, unraveling) of the plot comes quickly. Returning the next morning to Salem, Goodman Brown is a changed man. He now doubts that anyone is good – his wife, his neighbors, the officials of church and state – and he remains in this state of cynicism until he dies. The supernaturalism and horror of “Young Goodman Brown” mark the story as one variant of the Gothic tale, a type of ghost story originating formally in late eighteenth-century England and characterized by spirit-haunted habitations, diabolical villains, secret doors and passageways, terrifying and mysterious sounds and happenings, and the like. Obviously, “Young Goodman Brown” bears some resemblance to these artificial creations, the aesthetic value of most of which is negligible. What is much more significant is that here is a variation of the Faust legend, the story of a man who makes a bargain with the Devil (frequently the sale of his soul) in exchange for some desirable thing. In this instance Goodman Brown did not go nearly so far in the original indenture, but it was not necessary from the Devil’s point of view. One glimpse of evil unmasked was enough to wither the soul of Brown forever. 3. Historical-Biographical Considerations So much for textual matters, paraphrasable content, and genre. What kind of historical or biographical information do we need in order to feel the full impact of this story, aesthetically and intellectually? Obviously, some knowledge of Puritan New England is necessary. We can place the story in time easily, because Hawthorne mentions that it takes place in the days of King William (that is, William III, who reigned from 1688 to 1702). Other evidences of the time of the story are the references to persecution of the Quakers by Brown’s grandfather (the 1660s) and King Philip’s War (primarily a massacre of Indians by colonists [1675-1676]), in which Brown’s father participated. Specific locales like Salem, Boston, Connecticut, and Rhode Island are mentioned, as are terms used in Puritan church organization and government, such as ministers, elders, meetinghouses, communion tables, saints (in the Protestant sense of any Christian), selectmen, and lecture days. But it is not enough for us to visualize a sort of first Thanksgiving picture of Pilgrims with steeple-crowned hats, Bibles, and blunderbusses. For one thing, we need to know something of Puritan religion and theology This means at least a slight knowledge of Calvinism, a main source of Puritan religious doctrine. A theology as extensive and complex as Calvinism and one that has been the subject of so many misconceptions cannot be described adequately in a handbook of this type. But at the risk of perpetuating some of these misconceptions, let us mention three or four tenets of Calvinism that will illuminate to some degree the story of Goodman Brown. Calvinism stresses the sovereignty of God – in goodness, power, and knowledge. Correspondingly, it emphasizes the helplessness and sinfulness of human beings, who have been since the Fall of Adam innately and totally depraved. Their only hope is in the grace of God, for God alone is powerful enough (sovereign enough) to save them. And the most notorious, if not the chief, doctrine is predestination, which includes the belief that God has, before their creation, selected certain people for eternal salvation, others for eternal damnation. Appearances are therefore misleading; an outwardly godly person might not be one of the elect. Thus it is paradoxical that Goodman Brown is so shocked to learn that there is evil among the apparently righteous, for this was one of the most strongly implied teachings of his church.
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