Ambiguity And Reality In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

Nathaniel Hawthorne can be considered one of the most important writers of the Dark Romanticism movement in American literature. Most of his writings were settled in the Puritan New England and, as a result, aimed to show the inherent evil existing inside of the Puritans and human beings (Bell 107-8). “Young Goodman Brown” is one of these tales in which the protagonist starts a trip to the forest where we are shown this evil and depravity inside human beings. Although Brown feels how he loses his faith and belief, it can be discussed if Brown’s experiences were a dream or a reality due to the ambiguity of the story. This paper aims to prove that the events taking place in the forest during Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” are a dream through the unsuccessful ambiguities presented during the story, the representation of the staff as a snake and the appearance of Faith’s pink ribbon in the forest.
The ambiguities used by Hawthorne are not always successful throughout the story, which helps to identify the story as a dream. According to the text,
So saying, he threw it down at her feet, where, perhaps, it assumed life, being one of the rods which its owner had formerly lent to the Egyptian magi. Of this fact, however, Goodman Brown could not take cognizance. He had cast up his eyes in astonishment, and, looking down again, beheld neither Goody Cloyse nor the serpentine staff (27-8).
Although Hawthorne attempts to be ambiguous at the beginning of this quotation, without explaining why …show more content…
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