assign

 Young Goodman Brown” (Links to an external site. 

Module 8: Lesson and Notes

 

What is the supernatural, or strange, in fiction?

Supernatural fiction is as old as storytelling itself. 
Beowulf is the oldest story written in the English language and the epic hero spends
most of his time grappling with supernatural creatures. However, supernatural fiction didn’t make its debut as its own sub genre until
the mid 18th century, when the idea of the novel was emerging. Monsters, gargoyles, dimly lit corridors, and bleak settings decorate the
history of the literary supernatural. Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, and Baskerville’s hounds are a few character examples that emerged during this time. 

Elements of Supernatural or strange fiction

·

Can be heavy on the gothic elements

·

“Gothic Literature” from the Encyclopedia of Gothic Literature, Second Edition,Links to an external site.

 provides a great overview. 

· Include Horror

· This genre doesn’t always have supernatural elements. Instead, the monsters in horror fiction, and often  gothic fiction too, are humans. 

· An example of this can be found in several of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories: “The Cask of Amontillado”, “The Black Cat”,  and “The Tell-Tale Heart” are a few, if you’re interested.

· Fantasy (some) or mythical elements

· Sometimes elements of the supernatural can be used represent something humanity doesn’t understand like feast or famine. They could also represent some sort of struggle or social issue.

· Supernatural or strange elements can represent human fear or doubt.

The Supernatural in “Young Goodman Brown”

One of your readings from this module, ”

Young Goodman Brown” (Links to an external site.)

, embodies several elements of supernatural and strange fiction: 

·

· The presence of the Devil in “Young Goodman Brown” can represent Goodman Brown’s own doubts and fears. 

· The entire story itself uses gothic elements to create the horrific mood of the story.

· The setting is in a dark forest.

· The protagonist is meeting with the devil on an old road in the black of night.

· There is spiritual strife and internal conflict.

· The final scene paints a gruesome picture of a congregation wearing dark cloaks, burning trees and bowls of blood. 

· There are spiritual symbols, like the name “Faith”, and the pink ribbons (innocence or purity) that contrast the bleak and somber setting.

As you advance in your research (both in this class and also further in your college career and beyond), it will grow in complexity. You may eventually have to find several sources (larger projects can require 10 or 20+ sources) and it will be important that you have a method for organizing your research.

 

Introducing: 
The Annotated Bibliography (cheers, applause) 

Annotated bibs are exactly what they sound like. It is a bibliography or works cited entry that you have annotated, or made notes about. The great thing about an annotated bib is that it is solely for 
your benefit. It is so you can go back over your sources and research and look through organized notes written by you, to you and for you. 

Later in the semester, you will craft an an annotated bibliography over your research project. This week we will practice for that. Look over the following materials to get familiar with the format and purpose of an annotated bibliography.

Annotated Bibliography

 Download Annotated Bibliography

Example Formatting for AnnBib x

 
 Download Example Formatting for AnnBib x

    

 

This week you read “Young Goodman Brown”.  I’ve provided an article by Paul Hurley that does a really good job of laying out his argument. I want you to find that argument!

This is how a scholarly article is often formatted**when you are reading, you want to pat attention to the opening pages. This is where the author’s argument is going to be and how they set up that argument is important. They will lay the foundation by presenting the ongoing conversation about the text. The issue being presented and who is saying what and why. 

· Read the article and do an “active reading”.  This is the act of underlining or highlighting important concepts, marking the thesis and topic sentences, circling any unfamiliar words and defining them in the margin, etc., that you think are interesting, or that make good points. It’s okay if you don’t understand everything in the entire article – literary criticism can be challenging to read! Focus on the points that you do understand.

· Find the author’s point, or thesis, in the article. What are they saying about the topic? How are they contributing to the overall discussion?

YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN’S HEART OF DARKNESS-1

 Download YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN’S HEART OF DARKNESS-1

Minimize File Preview

Young Goodman Brown’s “Heart of Darkness”
Author(s): Paul J. Hurley
Source: American Literature, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Jan., 1966), pp. 410-419
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2923136
Accessed: 09-11-2016 16:19 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted

digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about

JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at

Terms and Conditions of Use

Duke University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American
Literature

This content downloaded from 64.28.242.31 on Wed, 09 Nov 2016 16:19:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Young Goodman Brown’s “Heart of Darkness”

PAUL J. HURLEY

Southern Illinois University

rHE CRITICAL CONTROVERSY WHICH HAS CENTERED on Hawthorne’s
11 “Young Goodman Brown” seems to have reached an impasse.

Critics have usually seen the story as an allegory embodying Haw-
thorne’s suspicions about man’s depravity.’ This interpretation
implies that the Devil’s words to Goodman Brown-“Evil is the
nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness.”-echo
Hawthorne’s own attitude. R. H. Fogle, for instance, writes,
“Goodman Brown, a simple and pious nature, is wrecked as a
result of the disappearance of the fixed poles of his belief. His
orderly cosmos dissolves into chaos as church and state, the twin
pillars of his society, are hinted to be rotten, with their foundations
undermined.”2 Hawthorne, Fogle says, “does not wish to propose
flatly that man is primarily evil; rather he has a gnawing fear
that this might be true.”3 And Harry Levin has unequivocally
stated, “The pharisaical elders … meeting in the benighted wilder-
ness, are doing the devil’s work while professing righteousness.”4

On the other hand, F. 0. Matthiessen and W. B. Stein have
resisted the majority consensus and suggested that it is Goodman
Brown who purposely seeks for evil.5 Recently David Levin has
attempted to void both points of view by insisting that Goodman
Brown is misled by the Devil who conjures up apparitions to
befuddle his innocent victim.6 The idea is comforting but not
convincing. To take guilt away from human beings in order to
place it on infernal powers is not a satisfactory explanation of the

‘Among them: Q. D. Leavis, in “Hawthorne as Poet,” Sewanee Review, LIX, 179-
205 (April-June, 1951); Harry Levin, in The Power of Blackness (New York, 1958);
and Roy Male, in Hawthorne’s Tragic Vision (Austin, Tex., I957).

2 Hawthorne’s Fiction: The Light and the Dark (Norman, Okla., 1952), p. 79.
31bid., p. i6.

The Power of Blackness, p. 54.
6 Matthiessen, American Renaissance: Art and Expresision in the Age of Emerson and

Whitman (New York, 1941), p. 283; and Stein, Hawthorne’s Faust: A Study of the
Devil Archetype (Gainesville, Fla., I953), pp. 6-7. Unfortunately, neither of these critics
offered a sustained analysis of his reading.

“Shadows of Doubt: Specter Evidence in Hawthorne’s ‘Young Goodman Brown,'”
American Literature, XXXIV, 344-352 (Nov., I962).

This content downloaded from 64.28.242.31 on Wed, 09 Nov 2016 16:19:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Young Goodman Brown’s “Heart of Darkness” 411

story. To the modern mind (and I suspect that includes Haw-
thorne’s) either Abigail Williams and her Salem playmates were
irresponsible, hysterical little liars, or Martha Carrier and Goody
Proctor really were witches.

If I am correct, David Levin’s contention is misleading, and we
must return to the original argument. He writes, “Asking whether
these people were ‘really’ evil is impertinent, for it leads us beyond
the limits of fiction.”7 Confessing diabolical inspiration, I shall
take a chance on being impertinent because I am not convinced
that questions dealing with man’s nature and the human heart are
“beyond the limits of fiction.” I believe the reader has every right
to wonder if the townspeople are actually cohorts of the Devil.
After all, if Young Goodman Brown did not have a nightmare or
experience hallucinations, Hawthorne has created a fearful indict-
ment of humanity. But if Goodman Brown did “dream,” then the
evil he saw, like the witchcraft reported in Salem in I692, was the
product of his own fancy with no reality save that supplied by his
depraved imagination.

My point here is that “Young Goodman Brown” is a subtle
work of fiction concerned with revealing a distorted mind. I be-
lieve the pervasive sense of evil in the story is not separate from or
outside its protagonist; it is in and of him. His “visions” are the
product of his suspicion and distrust, not the Devil’s wiles. Good-
man Brown’s dying hour is gloomy because the evil in his own
heart overflows; he sees a world darkened by the dreariness of sin.
Hawthorne has given us every reason to read the story as a revela-
tion of individual perversion (the story, after all, is entitled “Young
Goodman Brown”), and speculations about man’s nature or the
talents of the Devil are out of place.

The tale begins with an account of Goodman Brown’s departure
from his home in Salem village in order to keep a strange tryst in
the forest. He prepares to leave “at sunset,” an hour when the
world is about to be plunged into darkness. Faith, “as the wife was
aptly named,” begs him to “put off [his] journey till sunrise”; but
he replies, “My journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again,
must needs be done ‘twixt now and sunrise.” Like Richard Digby,
the intolerant religious fanatic of “The Man of Adamant” who

7lbid., p. 351.

This content downloaded from 64.28.242.31 on Wed, 09 Nov 2016 16:19:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

412 American Literature

“plunged into the dreariest depths of the forest” and was disap-
pointed that “the sunshine continued to fall peacefully on the cot-
tages and fields… ,” Goodman Brown’s alliance with evil is
suggested by contrasting images of light and dark which intimate
a symbolic opposition between good and evil. These images of
shadow, dark, and gloom become more frequent and persuasive
as the story continues.

Hawthorne makes clear at once that Goodman Brown’s purpose
on this night is an evil one. The fact that he is aware of the sin-
fulness of his trip destroys any belief we may have in Goodman
Brown’s “simple and pious nature.”

“Poor little Faith!” thought he, for his heart smote him. “What a wretch
am I to leave her on such an errand! She talks of dreams, too. Me-
thought as she spoke there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had
warned her what work is to be done to-night. But no, no; ‘twould kill
her to think it. Well, she’s a blessed angel on earth; and after this one
night I’ll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven.”

Aside from the interesting emphasis on dreams, the passage is
noteworthy for several reasons. Goodman Brown’s conscience is
troubled by his departure from Faith. He realizes that it would
“kill her” if she were to know the purpose of his trip, but he
assumes that his absence (his departure from faith) will be only
temporary. Goodman Brown’s first mistake is to imagine that faith
(which, most readers are agreed, must be interpreted as faith in
one’s fellow men as well as religious faith) can be adopted and
discarded at will. The irony of the passage resides primarily in the
implication that Goodman Brown intends to get to heaven by
clinging to the “skirts” of faith rather than by virtue of his own
character or actions. The ironic implications become almost play-
ful in the following sentence: “With this excellent resolve for the
future, Goodman Brown felt himself justified in making more haste
on his present evil purpose.” Despite Fogle’s concentration on the
ambiguities of the story, it seems clear that Hawthorne means us to
be in no doubt that Goodman Brown has already had some contact
with the forces of evil and does not hesitate to renew that contact,
because he feels that he will prove superior to the temptations which
may assail him.

The suggestions that we are primarily concerned with the char-

This content downloaded from 64.28.242.31 on Wed, 09 Nov 2016 16:19:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Young Goodman Brown’s “Heart of Darkness” 413

acter of Goodman Brown, with some secret concerning his mind
and heart, become stronger as he journeys into the forest, which
functions as a symbol of withdrawal into oneself. Goodman
Brown’s isolation, his retreat from normal human intercourse into
the strange dream world of the subconscious, is intimated by the
imagery which describes his journey. He takes “a dreary road,
darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest.” Goodman Brown
there encounters the man whom he has journeyed into the forest
to find. The man appears to be the Devil himself, and he expects
Goodman Brown.

The forest, symbol of Brown’s retreat into himself, is associated
with images suggestive of evil. “It was deep dark in the forest, and
deepest in that part of it where these two were journeying.” Haw-
thorne also insists on the similarity between Brown and the Devil-
“the second traveller was about fifty years old, apparently in the
same rank of life as Goodman Brown, and bearing a considerable
resemblance to him….” And we are informed that “they might
have been taken for father and son.” Despite David Levin’s re-
minders of the Devil’s wiles and powers, this personage is so curious-
ly described that he is indisputably Goodman Brown’s own personal
devil.

Goodman Brown’s faith may be “little,” but it is not nonexistent.
His “devil” knows, just as Goodman Brown or any contemporary
criminal subconsciously knows, that belief in the morality of society
must be destroyed, rationalized away, before total commitment to
evil is possible. When the young man is chided by his companion
for his tardiness in keeping their appointment, he replies, “Faith
kept me back awhile”; but faith was not, of course, strong enougn
to prevent his journey. Goodman Brown’s “lonely night of the
soul,” his pathetic struggle between good and evil, is dramatized in
his dialogue with the Devil. At first he protests that he intends to
return at once to the village. “‘Sayest thou so?’ replied he of the
serpent, smiling apart.” The Devil, it seems, knows his victim well.
He urges the young man to walk on, insisting that they are “but a
little way in the forest yet”; and Goodman Brown goes with him,
not realizing how far into the forest of his own evil he has already
traveled.

The Devil then begins a sly temptation of Goodman Brown, but

This content downloaded from 64.28.242.31 on Wed, 09 Nov 2016 16:19:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

4I4 American Literature

it is a puzzling temptation because the only rewards Goodman
Brown is offered are the aspersions cast on his family, his neighbors,
and his church. Strangely enough, he accepts without question the
words of the Father of Lies. The temptation is actually a kind of
interior monologue, a debate which Goodman Brown holds with
himself. He asks the Devil several questions whose purpose seems
to be to keep him from evil. The questions, it is interesting to note,
suggest the three institutions to which man is morally obligated: the
family, society, the church. Goodman Brown asks, in effect, “What
would my family think? What would the neighbors say? How
would the church react?” But the Devil (or psychic rationaliza-
tion) assures him that his family, his neighbors, and the leaders of
his church are far more stained by the blackness of sin than he.

These questions are projected into vivid, concrete form in the
visions which follow. As they walk on into the forest, Goodman
Brown and the Devil come upon a woman whom Brown recognizes
as the venerable and pious Goody Cloyse. Fearing (or pretending
to fear) that she will question his being out so late in such strange
company, Goodman hides himself. The Devil, however, advances
on her; she recognizes him and they hold a short conversation in
which the old woman reveals that she has long been on familiar

terms with Satan. The young man never pauses to consider the
reality of Goody’s appearance, even though such consideration
might be expected of any well-trained Puritan cognizant of the
Devil’s powers. Hawthorne’s use of Goody Cloyse and her refer-
ence to Martha Carrier remind us that they were actual historical
personages unjustly accused by twisted “youngsters.” That Goody
Cloyse’s appearance is part of Goodman Brown’s psychological self-
justification seems clear from Hawthorne’s statement in the follow-
ing paragraph: “They continued to walk onward, while the elder
traveller exhorted his companion to make good speed and persevere
in the path, discoursing so aptly that his arguments seemed rather
to spring up in the bosom of his auditor than to be suggested by
himself.”8 The biblical echo of the Devil’s exhortation to Brown
“to make good speed and persevere in the path” appears to be
Hawthorne’s ironic parodying of the situation since it is the path
of self-righteousness to which Goodman Brown adheres.

8 Italics here as elsewhere are mine.

This content downloaded from 64.28.242.31 on Wed, 09 Nov 2016 16:19:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Young Goodman Brown’s “Heart of Darkness” 415

When Brown finally refuses to go any further, the Devil seems
entirely undisturbed by the news: “‘You will think better of this
by and by,’ said his acquaintance, composedly.” Sitting by himself,
Goodman Brown experiences his second “vision.” He imagines
that he hears the voices of the minister and Deacon Gookin, as they
ride by, talking about the devilish communion which they plan to
attend. Goodman’s reason for believing what little evidence his
senses afford him is even less good in this instance than it had been
in the previous one:

owing doubtless to the depth of the gloom at that particular spot, neither
the travellers nor their steeds were visible. Though their figures brushed
the small boughs by the wayside, it could not be seen that they inter-
cepted, even for a moment, the faint gleam from the strip of bright sky

athuwart which they must have passed. Goodman Brown alternately
crouched and stood on tiptoe, pulling aside the branches and thrusting
forth his head as far as he durst without discerning so much as a shadow.

Fogle has alluded to this passage too as evidence of Hawthorne’s
ambiguity, but there is no ambiguity in the fact that Goodman
Brown actually saw nothing at all. Nevertheless, he stands “doubt-
ing whether there really was a heaven above him.” Goodman
Brown makes one last desperate avowal of his resistance to evil:
“‘With heaven above and Faith below, I will yet stand firm….'”
But he has already departed from Faith. Goodman Brown then
thinks that he hears the sound of voices: “The next moment, so
indistinct were the sounds, he doubted whether he had heard aught
but the murmur of the old forest, whispering without a wind.”
Hearing “one voice of a young woman,” he immediately assumes
it is his wife, and he cries her name. Suddenly he catches sight of
an object fluttering down through the air; he clutches it and dis-
covers it is a pink ribbon. Associating it at once with the ribbons
his wife had worn that evening, he shouts: “‘My Faith is gone!’
… ‘There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil;
for to thee is this world given.'” Goodman Brown accepts his
wife’s guilt without ever having seen her.

Faith’s ribbons have proved bothersome to several critics. F. 0.
Matthiessen objected to them because they seemed too literal and
concrete; they appeared to him out of keeping with other sugges-

This content downloaded from 64.28.242.31 on Wed, 09 Nov 2016 16:19:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

4I6 American Literature

tions that Brown is having an hallucination.9 Fogle has noted that
they are mentioned three times in the opening paragraphs of the
story, and he feels that “if Goodman Brown is dreaming the ribbon
may be taken as part and parcel of his dream.”‘0 At any rate, “Its
impact is merely temporary”” (a peculiar statement in view of the
fact that these ribbons appear, at last, to convince Goodman Brown
of man’s depravity and so “color” the rest of his life). Hawthorne
concentrates so insistently on Faith’s ribbons, and their effect on
Goodman Brown is so devastating, that one may, assume they were
intended as an important symbol. If we remember that Faith is
primarily an allegorical figure, an answer suggests itself. Goodman
Brown, we recall, intends to get to heaven by clinging to Faith’s
skirts; in other words, he feels that the mere observation of ritual
will insure salvation-good works have no place in his (as they had
no place in Calvinistic) theology. Faith’s skirts and her ribbons
fulfil somewhat the same function. The ribbons, with their sug-
gestions of the frivolous and ornamental, represent the ritualistic
trappings of religious observance. Goodman Brown, it seems, has
placed his faith and his hopes of salvation in the formal observances
of religious worship rather than in the purity of his own heart and
soul. This interpretation is supported by the fact that what he has
seen and heard of Goody Cloyse, the minister, and Deacon Gookin,
even though it may condemn them as individuals, can hardly be
used as a condemnation of religious faith. Goodman Brown accepts
the metonymic ribbon, Faith’s adornment, as reality-just as he has
accepted the “skirts” of religion as a means of salvation.

Has Goodman Brown really been subjected to visions which
imply the universal prevalence of evil? Has the faith of a good
man been destroyed by a revelation of the world’s sinfulness? It
would seem not. If one accepts the fact that Hawthorne gives us
no valid grounds to believe in the reality of Goodman Brown’s
visions and voices, he must either believe, as Fogle does, that Haw-
thorne feared his own knowledge of the world’s evil; or he must
treat those events as emanations from Brown’s subconscious which
intimate the corruption of Brown’s own mind. Why do the young
man’s visions of evil concern only Goody Cloyse, the minister,

9 American Renaissance, p. 284.
10 Hawthorne’s Fiction, p. i8.
“lbid., p. I9.

This content downloaded from 64.28.242.31 on Wed, 09 Nov 2016 16:19:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Young Goodman Brown’s “Heart of Darkness” 417

Deacon Gookin, and his wife? One answer, of course, is that they
represent an exceptional piety which makes their participation in
evil dramatically more effective. But if Hawthorne’s theme con-
cerns the universality of human sinfulness, should we not see a
wider manifestation of that evil? The only scene in which such a
manifestation occurs is the Devil’s communion, but that takes place
after Goodman Brown has declared his loss of faith; and the scene
of that vision, Hawthorne tells us, was “in the heart of the dark
wilderness,” a setting whose significance is so inescapable that
Joseph Conrad would later echo Hawthorne’s words (unknowing-
ly?) in the title of one of his novels.

A more significant reason for Hawthorne’s choice of those four
characters occurs to us if we return to a consideration of their
relationship to Goodman Brown. They are the four people in
Salem village to whom he is morally responsible. Goody Cloyse
“had taught him his catechism in youth, and was still his moral and

spiritual advisor, jointly with the minister and Deacon Gookin.”
His wife is an even more important representative of the forces of
morality and virtue. It seems obvious that they are the four people
whose respectability must be destroyed before Goodman Brown
can fully commit himself to a belief in the wickedness of the world.

The remainder of the story continues to emphasize Goodman
Brown’s surrender to evil. Rushing through the forest “with the
instinct that guides mortal man to evil,” Goodman Brown, the man
who has lost faith in his fellow men, “was himself the chief horror
of the scene.” “The fiend in his own shape,” Hawthorne tells us,
reminding us of the similarities between Goodman Brown and
the Devil, “is less hideous than when he rages in the breast of man.”
The communion scene in the forest, which Roy Male finds “es-
sentially sexual,” seems to me to be entirely the product of a dream
fantasy, a blasphemous parody of a religious service. In this “grave
and dark-clad company” Goodman Brown, his faith totally de-
stroyed, fancies that he sees every person he has ever known. When
a call is made to bring forth the converts, “Goodman Brown stepped
forth from the shadow of the trees and approached the congrega-
tion, with whom he felt a loathful brotherhood by the sympathy of

all that was wicked in his heart.” When the converts look upon
each other, Goodman Brown at last sees his wife. They are told

This content downloaded from 64.28.242.31 on Wed, 09 Nov 2016 16:19:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

418 American Literature

that “Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only hap-
piness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your
race.” But as if in denial of the Devil’s assertion, just as they are
about to be baptized into “the mystery of sin,” Goodman Brown
cries out: “‘Faith! Faith!’…’look up to heaven, and resist the
wicked one.’ Whether Faith obeyed he knew not.” Goodman’s
cry breaks the spell of his hallucination: “He staggered against the
rock, and felt it chill and damp; while a hanging twig, that had
been all on fire, besprinkled his cheek with the coldest dew.” That
Goodman Brown has been experiencing hallucinations or dreaming

seems unquestionable. The details concerning the rock and the
twig are surely intended to signal Goodman Brown’s return to a
“rational” state of mind.

The most striking quality of the paragraph which describes
Goodman Brown’s return to the village of Salem is its tone. No
longer are there any suggestions of the weird and incredible. The
dreamlike quality of Brown’s adventure in the forest is replaced by
purposefully direct and forthright narration. Life proceeds in the
village as it always has. Only Goodman Brown has changed. If
the events of the night before had been real, or even symbolic of
reality, would not Hawthorne have indicated in some way a shared
knowledge between Goodman Brown and the townsfolk whom he
sees? Hawthorne has told us that Brown did not know whether
his wife obeyed his cry to look up to heaven. Nonetheless, he
passes her without a greeting when she runs to meet him. His own
distrust and suspicion have assured him that she is sinful, even
though, as Hawthorne is careful to note, she is wearing the pink
ribbons which Goodman Brown thought he had grasped from the
air. Nor is there any change in anyone else. The minister seeks to
bless Goodman Brown, but the young man shrinks from him;
Deacon Gookin is praying and even though Goodman Brown can
hear “the holy words of his prayer,” he still thinks him a wizard.
Goody Cloyse is catechizing a young girl, and Goodman Brown
snatches the child from the old woman’s arms. The corruption of

his mind and heart is complete; Goodman Brown sees evil wherever
he looks. He sees it because he wants to see it.

If Hawthorne had wished to intimate that the events of the
night were real, it would hardly do to confuse us with suggestions

This content downloaded from 64.28.242.31 on Wed, 09 Nov 2016 16:19:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

Young Goodman Brown’s “Heart of Darkness” 4I)

about dreams (unless, as Fogle thinks, this was Hawthorne’s method
of escaping the implications of his own insight into man’s depravi-
ty). A more acceptable interpretation of the ambiguity of the
story is to see in it Hawthorne’s suggestion that the incredible in-
cidents in the forest were the product of an ego-induced fantasy,
the self-justification of a diseased mind. It seems clear that these
incidents were not experienced; they were willed. The important
point, however, is that Goodman Brown has accepted them as truth;
and the acceptance of evil as the final truth about man has turned
him into “a stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful” human
being. Goodman Brown does not become aware of his own kinship
with evil; he does not see sinfulness in himself but only in others.
That, perhaps, is his most awful sin. He has lost not only faith in
his fellow men but his compassion for them. And so it is that “On
the Sabbath day, when the congregation were singing a holy psalm,
he could not listen because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his
ear and drowned all the blessed strain.” Hawthorne never tells us
that the anthem, loud and fearful as it must have been, ever reached
the ears of any but young Goodman Brown.

This content downloaded from 64.28.242.31 on Wed, 09 Nov 2016 16:19:44 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

• Contents

p. [410]
p. 411
p. 412
p. 413
p. 414
p. 415
p. 416
p. 417
p. 418
p. 419

• Issue Table of Contents

American Literature, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Jan., 1966) pp. 391-544
Front Matter [pp. ]
Hawthorne and the Sublime [pp. 391-402]
Hawthorne’s Estimate of his Early Work [pp. 403-409]
Young Goodman Brown’s “Heart of Darkness” [pp. 410-419]
Thief and Theft in Huckleberry Finn [pp. 420-429]
The Architecture of The Rise of Silas Lapham [pp. 430-457]
Sentimentalism in the Early Poetry of William Carlos Williams [pp. 458-470]
Notes and Queries
Two of Washington Irving’s Friends Identified [pp. 471-473]
The Origin of Lowell’s “Miss Fooler” [pp. 473-475]
An Unpublished Whitman Letter and Other Manuscripts [pp. 475-478]
Book Reviews
Review: untitled [pp. 479-480]
Review: untitled [pp. 480-481]
Review: untitled [pp. 481-482]
Review: untitled [pp. 482-483]
Review: untitled [pp. 483-485]
Review: untitled [pp. 485-486]
Review: untitled [pp. 486-487]
Review: untitled [pp. 487-488]
Review: untitled [pp. 488-489]
Review: untitled [pp. 489-490]
Review: untitled [pp. 490-491]
Review: untitled [pp. 491-492]
Review: untitled [pp. 492-494]
Review: untitled [pp. 494-495]
Review: untitled [pp. 495-497]
Review: untitled [pp. 497-498]
Review: untitled [pp. 498-499]
Review: untitled [pp. 500-501]
Review: untitled [pp. 501-502]
Review: untitled [pp. 502-503]
Review: untitled [pp. 503-504]
Review: untitled [pp. 505-506]
Review: untitled [pp. 506-507]
Review: untitled [pp. 507-509]
Review: untitled [pp. 509-510]
Review: untitled [pp. 510-511]
Review: untitled [pp. 511-512]
Review: untitled [pp. 512-514]
Review: untitled [pp. 514-515]
Brief Mention [pp. 516-528]
Research in Progress [pp. 529-532]
Articles on American Literature Appearing in Current Periodicals [pp. 533-544]
Back Matter [pp. ]