“Young Goodman Brown”

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

THE LITERARY WORK

A short story set in Satem Village, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, about 1690; first published in 1835 In the New England Magazine; subsequently published in 1846 in Mosses from an Old Mame, Hawthorne’s fourth collection of short stories.

SYNOPSIS

A young man appears to attend a witches’ Sabbath presided over by the devil, who reveals to the man the secret evil of humankind.

Events in History at the Time the Short Story Takes Place

The Short Story in Focus

Events in History at the Time the Short Story Was Written

For More Information

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s great-great-grandfather, William Hathorne, immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630. He settled in Salem, the colony’s oldest town, and became one of Salem’s most prominent townsmen. An Indian fighter and a judge, Hathorne in one instance ordered that a burglar’s ear be cut off and his forehead branded with the letter B—both common punishments at that time. During Salem’s 1691-1692 witchcraft frenzy, in which many townspeople were accused of being witches, his son, John Hathorne, interrogated suspects such as Martha Corey, who was later hanged as a witch. Corey would become a character in “Young Goodman Brown.” The fact that Hawthorne’s ancestors had pursued such “evildoers” on behalf of the Puritan faith troubled him. Although there is no evidence for this claim, some have suggested that his ancestors’ actions bothered him so much that he changed the spelling of his last name to distance himself from them.

Events in History at the Time the Short Story Takes Place

The Puritan colonies

The Puritan religion grew out of the religious void that existed in England in the late 1500s when King Henry VIII severed ties between England and the Catholic pope. The purpose and structure of organized religion became subjects of serious debate. One result of this debate was Puritanism, which has been simply defined as “a belief that the Church of England should be purged of its hierarchy and of the traditions and ceremonies inherited from Rome” (Morgan, p. 7). Puritanism stripped organized religion of the ceremonial trappings as well as the hierarchy of authority that existed in the Catholic Church. The Puritan Church was a spare, ascetic religious body that placed responsibility for salvation on the individual rather than on religious leaders. As their numbers grew and they became increasingly disheartened by the perceived corruption and sin present in their country, English Puritans sought ways to “purify” the Protestant Church of England (Anglican Church) as well. Puritan ministers spoke of traveling to a new place to establish a “pure” church, thereby avoiding the vengeance that they believed was an inevitable result of God’s displeasure with sinful England.

Beginning in 1620 Puritan settlers began to establish colonies in New England—spreading from Massachusetts to Connecticut, Maine, and New Hampshire. These early colonists attempted to devote their lives to performing God’s work, establishing not a democracy but a theocracy, a society governed by religious laws and values. These Puritan immigrants believed that hard work, a strict interpretation of the Bible, and devotion to biblical ideas and values would enable them to recreate God’s first earthly paradise, the Garden of Eden. Over time, however, the Puritan settlers grew more worldly; acquisition of material wealth became a preoccupation of the Puritans. In this respect, Puritan theology presents a paradox: while viewed as a distraction from performing God’s work, material riches were also seen as evidence of God’s grace, a sign that the wealthy person was among the “elect,” those whom God had predestined to go to heaven after death.

Puritan beliefs and the Half-Way Covenant

Puritans believed that due to Adam’s original sin—disobeying God in the Garden of Eden—human beings were impure creatures, incapable of bettering their status in the eyes of God. However, the Puritans also believed that God was loving and had predestined some of his fallen creatures for salvation.

Those fortunate enough to have been predestined for salvation would supposedly pass through several stages on earth. A key stage was sanctification, in which the person became spiritually awakened and felt reborn—in effect, underwent a conversion from sinner to saint. Full membership in the church was restricted to those who could convince others that they had passed through this stage. A candidate for full membership would be questioned by officers of the church. If satisfied with the answers, they might then ask the candidate for a public confession, a description of his or her born-again experience. Finally the candidate would be voted into full membership. In other words, he or she would become a saint.

Around the 1650s, in the second generation of Puritans who came to America, far fewer than before stepped forward to claim full membership in the church. They had been baptized, but this indicated only that there was a likelihood that they would become saints, not that the transition from sinner to saint was a certainty. Their parents, sorely disappointed at how few of the second generation were becoming full members, worried about the survival of their churches. A question arose. The second generation were now adults with children of their own. Were third-generation children entitled titled to be baptized into the faith if their parents had not yet become full members? In 1662 some leaders responded “yes,” and the Half-Way Covenant came into being. The covenant gave these adults and children of the later generations half-way membership in the church in exchange for their leading Christian lives.

In Hawthorne’s short story, his main character, Young Goodman Brown, is a third-generation Puritan. Whether Brown is a full or a half-way member of the church is unclear. He, however, presumes that his fate is already sealed—he will be saved. After all, God had made a covenant with his grandfather and his grandfather’s seed, or off-spring. If Brown sins for one night, he reasons, it is of little consequence. But Puritan religion taught that there were no guarantees; even full members could not bank on salvation for certain. In fact, Brown’s line of reasoning was in itself regarded as a sin.

At the end of the story, Brown becomes preoccupied with his thoughts. Soul-searching and self-examination were common in Puritan society as individuals tried to fathom their own true nature and destiny. Therefore, Brown’s behavior here would not have been altogether unusual. He, however, moves through life gloomily, apparently plagued by thoughts not only of himself but also of the evil in all humankind, and this distinguishes him from most of the other Puritans in Salem. They were, to be sure, a serious group, but their beliefs did not stop them from sometimes acting gay and lighthearted, as Brown’s wife, Faith, does in the story.

The Salem witchcraft trials and spectral evidence

In 1691 the colonists in Salem suffered a number of blows, including a harsh winter, steep taxes by the British colonial government, and an outbreak of smallpox. Bloody encounters with nearby Indian tribes had also become part of the colony’s recent history. It seemed obvious to some members of the community that all of this trouble could have only one cause: the devil. The Bible, which had warned them of the devil’s evil intentions, had also warned them of witches, humans who do the devil’s work.

In 1692 the Reverend Samuel Parris served as the pastor of Salem Village Church. For reasons that have never been entirely clear, Parris’s niece and daughter began to behave strangely, running through the house, shrieking, and displaying unprecedented defiance of adult authority. Parris called the village physician, who quickly diagnosed that the girls had been possessed by demons. The odd behavior of the Parris girls soon surfaced in other Salem young people. They charged that several individuals in the village had “bewitched” them.

In Salem Village the penalty for witchcraft was death. A special court of Oyer and Terminer (to hear and determine) was assembled to hear the cases against those accused of witchcraft. Among the judges was John Hathorne, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s great-grandfather. Like other court examiners, Hathorne relied upon hearsay, forced confessions, and “spectral evidence” to convict thirty-one people of witchcraft.

Spectral evidence, which played the most vital role in the Salem witchcraft trials, was evidence that appeared only to the alleged victims of witchcraft. During the trials, accusers often claimed to see an apparition of the accused. They blamed these apparitions for the witchcraft that was causing such turmoil in Salem. This spectral evidence was seen as important because of the prevailing belief that these apparitions were prompted by Satan, who had made a pact with the person whose image he had assumed. It was believed that any specters who looked like one of the defendants must be acting with his or her permission; through the power of the devil, people’s specters were enacting their evil wishes.

One of the remarkable facts of the Salem witch trials is that no one who confessed was hanged. Only those accused persons who persistently denied committing the crime of witchcraft were executed. Fifty-five accused people confessed and received reprieves, while twenty men and women who refused to admit wrongdoing were executed.

The admission of spectral evidence as a determining factor in convicting the accused seems to have been an aspect of the trials that greatly interested Hawthorne. In his story, Young Goodman Brown sees what may be specters of townspeople—Goodwife Cloyse, Goodwife Corey, and his own bride, Faith. Their appearances in “Young Goodman Brown” resemble the specters cited as evidence in the witchcraft trials.

The decline of spectral evidence

The Salem witch hysteria of 1691-92 finally died down because the use of spectral evidence to convict an accused witch fell into disrepute. It was not that fear of the devil flagged in Puritan society. On the contrary, people began to contend that the devil might as easily appear in the shape of an innocent victim who had never conspired with him as in the shape of a guilty one. Opinion gradually changed, and it came to be thought that such evidence could no longer be trusted. Perhaps more important to understanding the short story than any other fact is a decision reached in 1692 by a group of Boston churchman. It was possible, they agreed, for a demon to take the shape of an innocent man or woman, in which case the demon and not the innocent person was committing the crime. In other words, a victim thought to have been hurt by, for example, old Goody Cloyse might have seen an evil spirit who had assumed her shape while she was sleeping harmlessly and peacefully in her bed.

In Hawthorne’s story, not only spectral evidence but visible evidence in general is held to be untrustworthy. The story places full members of the Puritan faith at the witch-meeting in the forest, suggesting that outward signs of goodness—such as regular attendance at church services—are not a true indication of a person’s inner nature. Hawthorne distrusted organized religion in both early Puritan and his own times, a view that surfaces in “Young Goodman Brown.”

Puritans and the devil

The Puritans believed that the American colonies existed on lands that had once belonged to the devil. They further believed that they had disturbed the devil by settling in his territories, a belief discussed by the famous Puritan minister Cotton Mather in his book Wonders of the Invisible World (1693). The Puritans therefore lived in constant fear of the devil’s wrath. They attributed Indian attacks, famine, and sickness to the devil, who they believed was launching reprisals for their invasion of his domain. Guided by Mather’s book, they regarded the so-called witches of Salem as another part of the devil’s plot. The devil, warned Mather, aimed to use witchcraft to uproot the Christian faith and restore devil worship to the area; a witch, he recalled, had informed them of this forty years earlier, before they had executed her.

The Puritans thought that the wilderness surrounding their colonies had achieved its “wildness” because it was the retreat of the devil. It was from this wilderness that the Indians, who the Puritans believed were servants of the devil, launched their attacks on the villages. It is appropriate, then, that the wilderness featured in “Young Goodman Brown” becomes the meeting ground for the villagers who are devoted to the devil.

This fear in the Puritan community that some of its members were in league with the devil was aggravated by the Salem witch trials. The testimony of some individuals was particularly troubling. For instance, one woman accused of witchcraft, a slave named Tituba, gave testimony that she had seen the devil’s book and had observed marks made in it by nine members of the village. The Puritans believed that marks in the devil’s book signified a pact made with him by members of their community. Such testimony heightened an already existing anxiety.

The Short Story in Focus

The plot

“Young Goodman Brown” tells the story of a young man of the colonial middle class who has a prearranged meeting in the forest with a mysterious stranger. Told in third person by a nameless narrator, the story begins at sunset when Brown, who does not heed his young wife’s pleas to the contrary, leaves his home to venture off into the forest. Before long Brown seems to have second thoughts about keeping his mysterious appointment, but he encounters an old man who appears to resemble Brown’s father. The stranger persuades Brown to continue through the forest. After walking a while with the old stranger, Brown again wants to turn back. An old woman whom Brown recognizes as Goody Cloyse, a “very pious and exemplary dame, who had taught him his catechism in youth,” then appears walking along the forest path (Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown,” p. 137). The woman addresses Brown’s companion as “the Devil” and appears to be familiar with him; this familiarity causes Brown great distress. After the woman leaves, Brown hears the voices of the minister and deacon of his village discussing the meeting in the forest to which they are traveling. This incident disturbs Brown as well.

Finally, Brown hears the rolling sound of voices emanating out of a black mass of cloud. The voices belong to a great many people in his village, including his new wife, Faith. As he listens to the voices of the cloud screaming and laughing, he hears his wife pleading for something unknown and sees her pink ribbon float down out of the cloud, then catch on a branch in the forest. This seems to drive Brown to madness, and he races wildly through the forest, finally arriving at an eerily lit clearing populated by Salem villagers and Indian priests. In the clearing “a figure,” possibly the devil, stands at a stone altar. The figure offers “communion” to Brown in order that Brown may accept and surrender to the evil that resides in the hearts of all people. In addition, there is to be another new initiate at the ceremony—Brown’s wife. Brown cries for her to look heavenward and resist the offer.

The next morning Brown returns to the village. The narrator wonders whether Brown actually attended a witch-meeting or whether it was all a dream. From that night on, though, Young

CHARACTERS AND THEIR SOURCES

Goodman Brown recoils from the villagers and often shrinks away from Faith, his own wife.

Dreams in “Young Goodman Brown.”

The question of the reality of the events related in the story has divided critics. There are three possible interpretations of the events: Brown met real people in the forest; he met specters; or the whole incident was simply a dream. In any case, critics agree that something of consequence happened to Brown in the forest and that the tale reflects a respect for dreams that existed in Puritan society.

Dreams are mentioned throughout the story, implying that they contain some elements of truth. When Brown leaves his wife Faith to begin his trip, she tells him, “A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts, that she’s afraid of herself sometimes” (“Young Goodman Brown,” p. 133). Brown’s reaction to Faith’s words also alludes to dreams: “Methought, as she spoke, there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is to be done tonight” (“Young Goodman Brown,” p. 134). Both characters take dreams seriously.

Brown’s actions at the end of the story show that he believes that the things he saw the night before really happened. He avoids the blessing of the minister and asks, regarding the town deacon, “What God doth the wizard pray to?” (“Young Goodman Brown,” p. 147). He also looks sternly upon his wife. But despite Brown’s own belief in what he saw, the next passage asks, “Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting?” (“Young Goodman Brown,” p. 147). The question recalls the three possibilities—that the meeting was a real event, a dream, or an assembly of specters—and highlights the unreliable nature of spectral evidence. Just as judges relied on spectral evidence to convict persons of witchcraft, Brown relies on his perhaps unreal forest experience in his subsequent assessment of society around him. The result is an attitude of gloomy aloofness, a posture that he keeps for the remainder of his life.

Sources

Some characters in Hawthorne’s story are based on historical Salem villagers who were associated with witchcraft, while others are simply members of the Salem community or characters based on Hawthorne’s Puritan ancestors. Many primary sources on the period in which “Young Goodman Brown” was set were available to Hawthorne. Principal sources included Cases of Conscience concerning Evil Spirits Personating Man (1693) by Increase Mather and Wonders of the Invisible World (1693) and Magnali Christi Americana (1702) by Cotton Mather. Hawthorne is known to have steeped himself in records and writings of the times.

Events in History at the Time the Short Story Was Written

The Second Great Awakening

The United States experienced a renewal of religious activity in the early 1800s, described by many historians as a “back-to-basics” reaction to developments in American society. With national expansion pushing the frontier westward, proponents of various religions and sects traveled extensively through the new lands in an attempt to recruit new members. Their actions led to a growth in religious activity that became known as the Second Great Awakening.

The nation was primarily Protestant, but within that broad religious spectrum various systems of belief found room to grow. Among these were the Congregationalists, early churches that grew out of the Puritan doctrine. Having established

themselves firmly in New England, they were to remain dominant there until the late 1800s. The Dutch Reformed Church, whose seat was in New York, was nearly as old as the Congregationalist faith, but it did not fare so well in the competition for membership during the revivals of the Second Great Awakening.

As the movement gained momentum, revival meetings were held in rural areas, towns, and urban areas as ministers sought to increase the membership of their organizations. Visiting ministers tried to determine the ability of growing communities to support additional churches. If they deemed that sufficient support existed, another church would be established in the area. The passion and persuasive power of the revival meetings may have influenced Hawthorne’s description of the witch-meeting in his short story. His mistrust of the religious fervor of his own times was combined with his guilt concerning his ancestors’ participation in the Salem witch trials. Both find expression in “Young Goodman Brown.”

The critics and Hawthorne

When “Young Goodman Brown” was published, critics did not quite know what to make of it. Some focused their attention on the mystical aspects of the story. For example, a reviewer commenting in the American Review said that “as a tale of the supernatural it certainly is more exquisitely managed than anything we have seen in American Literature, at least” (Harris, p. 293). The famous author Herman Melville, Hawthorne’s close friend, wrote of “Young Goodman Brown” that its title was deceptively simple but the tale itself a triumph in depth.

THE HAWTHORNE CURSE

After one Puritan woman, Rebekah Nurse, was sentenced to death for witchcraft, she delivered a curse upon her judge John Hathorne and upon his children’s children. One historian explained how it affected the family: “This was the curse that lingered in the family memory like a black blot in the blood, and was ever after used to explain any ill luck that befell the house” (Woodbury, p. 2).

While the story exposes the hypocrisy of the early Puritan colonists, it is so cleverly constructed that it also attacks the new wave of religious enthusiasm in Hawthorne’s lifetime. The devil’s gathering, for instance, bears some similarity to a back-country Congregationalist revival. The story’s main character also experiences an inability to fit into his society that paralleled Hawthorne’s inability to find his place in the mainstream society of his time. It is the incorporation of various ideas like these that makes Hawthorne’s short story such a hauntingly successful work.

For More Information

Harris, Laurie Lanzen, ed. Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale Research, 1982.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Young Goodman Brown.” In Selected Tales and Sketches. New York: Penguin, 1987.

Hudson, Winthrop S. Religion in America. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1981.

Morgan, Edmund S. The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop. Boston: Little, Brown, 1958.

Rosenthal, Bernard. Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958.

Woodbury, George E. Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York: Chelsea House, 1980.