Human Morality In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

In the short story, Young Goodman Brown, created by American writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, composed and formalized, in order to publicize symbolism to depict his viewpoint on human morality, known as the principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior, can be easliy distinguished in the main character reffered to as Goodman Brown in the text. Hawthorne adopts a histrionic tone in his writing, displaying the events of the short story, influenced by his Puritan culture. Intially, Hawthorne uses symbolism in his text to depict his viewpoint on human morality by introducing characters mentioned who can be known as young Goodman Brown and his wife Faith. Brown and Faith are part of the Puritan society, who
wore gray and brown boring clothing so that everyone was equal and showed purity. Faith can be seen as a form of symbolism used by Hawthorne due to her description and her pink ribbons displayed in her hair. Faith most likely had pink ribbons in her hair to differintiate herself from the rest of society and even in a Puritan society, pink can be seen as a color of innocence and purity. Faith is also an example of symbolism used by hawthorne by making Faith's name a piece of symbolism which can be noticed by the devout Christian like young Goodman Brown who is driven by his family, his Puritan faith, and his wife Faith. Goodman Brown is later noticed to call out "My Faith is gone!" (3). Another character that can be seen as symbolism is the traveler carrying a staff known as the Dark minister. This character is a form of symbolism because he can be seen as a holy guy contained with evil. Thus prompting, Hawthorne introduces symbolism in his short story as a way to depict his viewpoint on human morality by using figurative language to commonly describe the woods. The woods can be seen as symbolism because the woods symbolize the world outside the Puritan community, outside the normal boundaries of right and wrong, and outside of Goodman Brown's comfort zone. The woods can also be seen as personification of young Goodman Brown's fears and suspicions which are an unusual image of dark feelings he doesn't normally recognize. For example, when Goodman Brown is walking in the woods by himself, hawthorne uses figurative language, such as a similie, to describe the woods, "... forth such laughter as set all the echoes of the forest laughing like demons around him."(3). In the end, another form of symbolism that can be seen used by Hawthorne to depict his view on human morality is the evil assembly.
The evil assembly is an important part of symbolism because it mirrors the actions that typically occur in a church setting except for the fact that it revolves around evil. The people of the evil assembly partake in rituals that they strictly follow and obey just like commoners of a church would. The evil assembly is simply a distortion of what's practiced in a christian riligion. For instance, when Hawthorne writes the quote, "Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome, again my children, to the communion of your race!"(4) this is just like a church in which the only happiness is one in which a person follows the path of God. Also, the hollow rock is a symbol of baptism. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses his short story Young Goodman Brown to depict his viewpoint and central understanding on human morality by using various forms of symbolism. Some of the multiple forms of symbolism include the characters, the woods, and the evil assembly. He manages to use a histrionic tone in his writing to exhort his main idea and to entertain the audience with an interesting short
story.