The opening scene of any well-written story is always intriguing, and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s (1835) opening for “Young Goodman Brown” does not disappoint, expertly setting the stage for the rest of the tale. “Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunset into the street at Salem village,” he writes, immediately evoking the scene of a puritan village, bathed in the pink and orange light of the setting sun. The fading light will become all too symbolic as the young man’s journey continues; as the innocence of those cheerful colors is stripped away by the dusk, then progresses on toward the depth of midnight.
Throughout the tale, Hawthorne (1835) uses light both to paint engaging imagery, and as a recurring symbol. No sooner does he desert his pleading wife, then the “dreary road [is] darkened” as he proceeds from the safety of his home to pursue what he knows to be an “evil purpose.” Next, when he meets his sinister companion, the light in the forest has deteriorated to “deep dusk”, with the promise of it being “deepest in that part of [the forest] where these two were journeying.” Therefore, we see that if Young Goodman Brown proceeds with this person, the light will be choked from him further. When he next seeks to retreat from …show more content…
In fact, the sinister sojourner’s laughter should come as no surprise, when the only argument our ‘hero’ can concoct to protest their progress in the Woods is to speak of what others would say if they knew his actions. The evil one knew that he had wrapped him with his “cords of vanity”, and now led him “as it were with a cart rope.” (Isaiah 5:18 King James Version) Thus, he is brought steadily to where “the road grew wilder and drearier and more faintly traced, and vanished at length, leaving him in the heart of the dark wilderness”. (Hawthorne,
Throughout the tale, Hawthorne (1835) uses light both to paint engaging imagery, and as a recurring symbol. No sooner does he desert his pleading wife, then the “dreary road [is] darkened” as he proceeds from the safety of his home to pursue what he knows to be an “evil purpose.” Next, when he meets his sinister companion, the light in the forest has deteriorated to “deep dusk”, with the promise of it being “deepest in that part of [the forest] where these two were journeying.” Therefore, we see that if Young Goodman Brown proceeds with this person, the light will be choked from him further. When he next seeks to retreat from …show more content…
In fact, the sinister sojourner’s laughter should come as no surprise, when the only argument our ‘hero’ can concoct to protest their progress in the Woods is to speak of what others would say if they knew his actions. The evil one knew that he had wrapped him with his “cords of vanity”, and now led him “as it were with a cart rope.” (Isaiah 5:18 King James Version) Thus, he is brought steadily to where “the road grew wilder and drearier and more faintly traced, and vanished at length, leaving him in the heart of the dark wilderness”. (Hawthorne,