Rob Shults

2 – 1 – 08

English 12 AP

Young Goodman Brown

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, Young Goodman Brown, is a story of a man who lost

faith in humanity. Goodman Brown is a naïve character who is unaware of many if the iniquities

of which people he idolizes have committed. Goodman has many weaknesses; he is self

righteous as well as naïve, but most of all Brown is conceited. Brown’s character traits are

obvious throughout the short story. From the start, Goodman Brown shows conceit, and up until

the very end Brown pays the consequences for his weaknesses.

Brown shows conceit when he leaves Faith, his wife, behind in order to test his own will

to resist evil. Faith, of course, is a metaphor for Goodman Brown’s faith in humanity as a whole.

Brown is willing to leave his faith behind for the mere test of his own will; his over-confidence is

blatant at this point. Of course, Brown is able to make excuses, such as “…after this on night I’ll

cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven”(Hawthorne, p. 1184), yet despite his excuses, the

fact still remains-Brown is willing to give up his faith to test his will to resist temptation.

Furthermore, Brown is self-righteous. He is arrogant in that he believes that none of his

family has sinned, yet when he learns that all of his family have an evil side. Even those whom

he idolizes, such as members of the church, are seen at the devil’s ceremony. Brown is in

disbelief in that he cannot accept the fact that the people that he sees as pure and good are indeed

evil in their own way. At this point, Brown pays the price for leaving his faith in humanity
behind and letting his conceited nature get the best of him; once Goodman Brown’s eyes are

opened to the true nature of those whom he idolizes, he loses all faith in humanity. He no longer

sees Faith (his wife) in the same way; he no longer knows her, nor does he know any faith in

humanity. Brown’s self-righteous nature leads him to believe that those whom he sees as pure are

indeed pure, and he and his family are blameless of sin. He sees all those whom he thinks are

unblemished by sin in the devils ceremony: “…the Lady of the Governor was there…Good old

Deacon Gookin has arrived…reputable and pious people …the sinners were not abashed by the

saints.”(Hawthorne, p. 1190). His overconfidence and self-righteous nature leads him to this

point where he sees all seemingly pious and “good” people overcome by sin, and thus he loses

his faith in humanity. Brown indeed does pay the consequences for his character flaws.

Goodman Brown is a character who is naïve and conceited at first, but after he pays the

consequences for his overconfidence and ignorance by losing his faith in humanity. Brown dies a

broken man; after he sees the world as it really is rather than the world that was polluted by the

conceit of his mind that he saw before , he loses all confidence in the good of humanity. Young

Goodman Brown is a flawed character who pays the price for his flaws in faith and happiness; no

longer can Brown live in his fantasy world in which he lived in before.

Works Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown." Making Literature Matter. 3rd ed. Boston, MA:
Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006. 1183-1193.