Young Goodman Browns test of faith In “Young Goodman brown”, Hawthorn uses examples like browns love and trust for his wife and deacon to develop the theme that you should never put your full trust in man. All the characters in Goodman Browns journey were once thought by Brown as good. Hawthorn also uses symbolism like Goodman’s wife’s pink ribbon and faith herself to tell a story of betrayal. As we may portray the “old man” as the bad guy in the story, I see him more as a good guy because he helps young Goodman brown see all the evil that was going on around him that brown was too blinded by his love to see. Hawthorn uses Browns faith as his greatest asset and his biggest compromise. According to Spark Notes, “Goodman Brown’s religious convictions
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“Browns faith was almost completely taken away and this made brown bitter and unforgiving” (Bartleby). Now instead of seeing the good in people, brown will only see them as hypocrites. But does this make brown himself a hypocrite for judging people for their sins and not seeing that by doing that, he himself is sinning. In the bible, it says to love your enemies, but brown is blinded by the sins and betrayal of his people that he disregards this. There was always one person throughout the whole story that we all presume as “the devil”, but what if he is the exact opposite of that. What if the old man was god himself, leading and pushing young Goodman brown into seeing the truth about the people around him, but instead of helping young Goodman brown, this destroys him and almost completely takes away his faith. One could say that this is story is related to the story of Adam and Eve where the snake leads eve to the fruit of wisdom. In Young Goodman Brown, the snake would be the old man, brown would be eve and the truth about the browns people would be the fruit. But what if in the bible, the snake was also god trying to help humans see what is really going on around them. We can only figure that god would want us to see the evil around us instead of letting us live around it and maybe even change us in to becoming evil
“Browns faith was almost completely taken away and this made brown bitter and unforgiving” (Bartleby). Now instead of seeing the good in people, brown will only see them as hypocrites. But does this make brown himself a hypocrite for judging people for their sins and not seeing that by doing that, he himself is sinning. In the bible, it says to love your enemies, but brown is blinded by the sins and betrayal of his people that he disregards this. There was always one person throughout the whole story that we all presume as “the devil”, but what if he is the exact opposite of that. What if the old man was god himself, leading and pushing young Goodman brown into seeing the truth about the people around him, but instead of helping young Goodman brown, this destroys him and almost completely takes away his faith. One could say that this is story is related to the story of Adam and Eve where the snake leads eve to the fruit of wisdom. In Young Goodman Brown, the snake would be the old man, brown would be eve and the truth about the browns people would be the fruit. But what if in the bible, the snake was also god trying to help humans see what is really going on around them. We can only figure that god would want us to see the evil around us instead of letting us live around it and maybe even change us in to becoming evil