Since Goodman Brown's name is ironic, it seems that
Nathaniel Hawthorne maintains a rather skeptical tone toward his character, especially
in the beginning of the narrative. For instance, as Goodman resolves "after this one
night I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven," it is evident that he intends
to "tarry" not with his wife, but with temptation and may not be so good. That he is
rather sanctimonious is also evinced by his feeling "himself justified in making more
haste on his present evil
purpose."
As Goodman proceeds, he expects
evil:
"There
may be a devilish Indian behind every tree," said Goodman Brown to himself; and he
glanced fearfully behind him as he added, "What if the devil himself should be at my
very elbow?"
Because he
suspects evil, Goodman does, indeed, discover it in the second traveller who
appears. Yet, he deludes himself, telling the old man with a staff who resembles him
that he is the "first of the name of Brown that ever took this
path..."
Repeatedly, Hawthorne in his skepticism suggests
the hypocrisy of Young Goodman Brown. When, for example, Goodman protests that his
father never ventured so far into the woods, the old man (who is the
devil) laughs,
"Well said, Goodman Brown! I have been as well
acquainted with your family as with ever a one among the Puritans; and that's not trifle
to say. I helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman
smartly through the streets of
Salem...."
As they continue
on their path, the elderly man takes on the appearance of Goodman Brown's grandfather.
But, in his guilt, Goodman resolves to return to Faith. He applauds himself greatly,
and thinks hypocritically how clear a conscience he will have when he meets the minister
in the morning. Goodman, then, turns from his "guilty purpose." But Deacon Gookin and
others arrive for the initiations of a young woman. Goodman is filled with
"uncertainty," "doubt," but after the mass, Goodman approaches the congregations with
whom he "felt a loathful brotherhood by the sympathy of all that was wicked in his
heart."
In the end, the tone of the narrative becomes one
that is almost tragic: "it was a dream of evil omen for young Goodman Brown" as a
"stern a sad, a darkly meditative, a distruftful, if not a desperate man did he become
from the night of that fearful dream." Young Goodman Brown has lost his faith on this
night in the primeval forest because he has deceived
himself.
According to Compton's Interactive
Encyclopedia,Romanticists held that absolute principles lead to personal
failure. Since Hawthorne was certainly a Romanticist, it is consistent with his
thinking, then, that his tone regarding Young Goodman Brown would move from skepticism
to
disapproval.
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