Summary and Response: “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
On the short story “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the main character goes on an adventure to a forest and experiences a dark ritual, where his fellow neighbors also attend, Brown’s wife faith, a witch named Goody Cloyse, an important church member Deacon Gookin and the Minister. On page 73, paragraph 63, Brown is at the ceremony, the Dark figure is speaking, He says: there are people (church members) that the common human being considers to be holier than themselves. Which the common citizens take the blame for the sins of the one that poses as divine. Contradicting their lives of prayer and goodness. And yet all those blessed individuals are attending the unholy assembly.
This day, the crowd acknowledges the religious individuals’ mysterious acts; old members of the church have been harassing their young housemaids. Women have been committing crimes because of the crave for their husband’s inheritance. The same way young boys have been lusting after their father’s possessions. And how young girls have been killing their recently born child.
Sin happens anywhere mortals are around, those places can be, the church, their homes, on the streets. Humans feel pleasure by practicing evil. The mystery of the sins, the roots of the dark arts and the unlimited source of evil is more powerful than humans and the dark figure itself.
This event is what modifies the story, Brown changes his view on life. The dark character teaches how evil is inside every human being, including himself, his wife and the church members, which the main character believed to be pure and a righteous example. Brown sees the truth of humanity and loses his naïvness. After the occurrence Brown sees the evil in every person and now he can not trust no one else, not even himself. Which causes to change his life and end up having a lonely death. The theme of the story is the loss of innocence, where Brown is not naïve anymore; he knows the truth of the world. This passage is the turning point of the reading; in this piece is where the devil shows him the evil in humans. This passage makes the reader also think about the fact that no one is pure, badness is inside people.
The reader’s point of view is that this story relates to everyday reality. In the present time and also when the reading was written. Every human has evil and goodness inside of him or her. Just like on the Chinese culture of the “yin-yang', where the white portion is pure but has a dark spot inside, the evil. And the bad side has a white circle inside. Showing that there is a small part of evil in good and a small part of darkness in the pure. There are other examples proving the darkness inside of people, some greater than others. Everybody once in their life experienced, wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and/or gluttony. However, people are still good hearted. That is what Brown should've thought about, humans have their faults but they shouldn't be fated for that reason, the protagonist has to learn how to forgive.
Summarizing, this passage happens in a forest near Salem, where Brown learns the truth about society. No one is pure, evil is inside all humans, it doesn't matter if the person is a church member, they are still humans and they have evil inside of them. The Dark figure at the ceremony taught him the reality of the world. This passage shows how innocence is a sensible matter, Brown lost his naïvness easily and it was a great shock, it changed his reality and view in life, caused him to live in doubt about humanity and himself, the fear of letting evil consume himself. He ended up isolating himself from the world because he didn't want to get too close to the other people, including his wife that continued to live with him, until he died in a lonely death.
