Hi, I'm Rebecca Balcarcel.
Let's talk about "Young Goodman Brown," a story by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Now this story is meant to be a bit scary.
And we have a dark forest, we have a journey through the dark forest,
we have witches, we have the devil, we have a walking staff that writhes like a snake.
It is rather atmospheric, almost like a horror story.
And the name for this is "Gothic."
That's the category of literature that the story falls into.
And Gothic literature tends to investigate the dark
side of human nature, and that's exactly what Young Goodman Brown investigates in the story.
So let's take a look at it and go scene by scene.
The title, first of all, tells us the main character's name.
Young: He's inexperienced, he's naive.
Goodman: This is a title that people in his community would just give to eachother,
men.
"Hello, Goodman so-and-so.
Hello, Goodman Brown."
Goodman means citizen, or husband.
And then Brown is his actual last name, you know, Mister Brown.
Now we started out with Young Goodman Brown at his
house, and the very first sentence says, "Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunset, into the
street of Salem village, but..."
Now before we finish, let's notice that it's sunset, not the usual time for starting on
a trip.
He's going out at night, after dark.
Why would he do that?
That's supposed to raise a question in our minds.
Alright, why's he going out at night?
Second, Salem Village, that's where he lives.
Now Salem Village calls to mind the witch trials of a hundered years before,
when these paranoid people burned fellow citizens as witches.
So the Puritan faith got a little out of control right there,
at that time, and Young Goodman Brown lives in that same town, and he's from that same
line of people, in the same tradition as those folks.
So, that sets the scene for us.
Now, going on with that sentence, he set out at fort- at sunset, "but put his head back,
after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his young
wife."
So he takes a step out the door, but he turns back to kiss his wife.
His wife is important in the story, so let's meet her: "And Faith, as the wife was aptly
named..."
That means her name is Faith and the name is appropriate for her, it suites her.
"...thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with
the pink ribbons of her cap, while she called to Goodman Brown."
Now she has pink ribbons in her cap, and that will be important because later, when we see
pink ribbons or hear about pink ribbons, we're
supposed to remember that that's Faith.
That's a little symbol of her.
Now she in turn, herself, as her name indicates, is
a symbol of Young Goodman Brown's faith, his religious faith, his religious conviction.
And when Faith is in trouble, meaning his wife is in trouble, then his
religious faith is in trouble too.
So throughout the story, Faith equals faith.
And of course, Hawthorn made that fairly obvious that he did that on purpose so that
we would have no trouble associating his wife with his religion.
Now naturally Faith says, "Don't go on this journey.
Stay here, stay safe in your bed.
Sleep at home tonight."
And he says, "Oh, no, this is the one night of the year that I must tarry away from you."
So I need to be detained elsewhere.
He doesn't say where he's going, but he says he needs to go, and doesn't
she trust him?
And so she has misgivings but she lets him go, and says, "Okay, well, hopefully everything
will be okay when you get back."
Now actually things are not okay when he gets back, not because of her, but because he has
undergone a change during this journey into the woods.
Now let's look at the second scene.