The Importance Of Nature In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

The story begins - a character walks through the woods, he has a chance encounter, he meets a character, and the rest of the story develops predictably into suspicion and fear. Of course, not all walks in the wood are evil, and not all people met in the woods are evil. Some woods are sanctuaries. And even while a story telling of the dangers of suspending your beliefs in order to walk without God can even be a valuable example of puritanical structure, another story can, within the same setting, state a preference of isolation, as well - especially a story that proscribes how impersonal and wilting society can be. Two stories in which a relatively remote walk in the woods provides a background are Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown …show more content…
The method Sylvia uses to arrive at her decision concerning this preference is different, and the fact that it takes place at the end of the story also differs from both Brown’s decision and the timing of his decision. And since Sylvia ultimately chooses to “keep silence” (59) about the location of the bird she further differs herself by choosing the more morally defensible option. When Sylvia meets (52) with the hunter and learns that he wants to use her as a “…hunting…” (53) guide, she doesn’t allow that to sway her to choose to help the hunter, who may be said to represent society, over her own desire to remain in solidarity with nature. Along the way, she faces conflicts with herself over the “the longed-for white heron,” who is “elusive” (56), and with her grandmother, who “…rebukes her…” (58), for deciding not to reveal its location, but never gives in to the shock of her grandmother’s rebuke, or the demand of the