him. Goodman Brown begins to think to himself about his situation and his pride in
himself begins to build. He “applauds himself greatly, and thinking with how clear a
conscience he should meet his minister…And what calm sleep would be his…in the arms
of Faith!” This is ironic because at the end of the story, he can not even look Faith in the
eye, let alone sleep in her arms. As Goodman Brown is feeling good about his strength in
resisting the Devil, he hears the voices of the minister and Deacon Gookin. He overhears
their conversation and hears them discuss a “goodly young woman to be taken in to
communion” that evening at that night’s meeting and fears that it may be his Faith. When
Goodman Brown hears this he becomes weak and falls to the ground. He “begins to doubt
whether there really was a Heaven above him” and this is a key point when Goodman
Brown’s faith begins to wain. Goodman Brown in panic declares that “With Heaven above,
and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the devil!” Again, Brown makes a promise to
keep his faith unto God. Then “a black mass of cloud” goes in between Brown and the sky
as if to block his prayer from heaven. Brown then hears what he believed to be voices that
he has before in the community. Once Goodman Brown begins to doubt whether this is
really what he had heard or not, the sound comes to him again and this time it is followed
by “one voice, of a young woman”. Goodman believes this is Faith and he yells out her
name only to be mimicked by the echoes of the forest, as if his calls to Faith were falling
on deaf ears. A pink ribbon flies through the air and Goodman grabs it. At this moment, he
has lost all faith in the world and declares that there is “no good on earth.” Young
Goodman Brown in this scene is easily manipulated simply by the power of suggestion.
The suggestion that the woman in question is his Faith, and because of this, he easily
loses his faith. Goodman Brown then loses all of his inhibitions and begins to laugh
insanely. He takes hold of the staff which causes him to seem to “fly along the
forest-path”. This image alludes to that of Adam and Eve being led out of the Garden of
Eden as is Goodman Brown being led out of his utopia by the Devil’s snakelike staff.
Hawthorne at this point remarks about “the instinct that guides mortal man to evil”. This is
a direct statement from the author that he believes that man’s natural inclination is to lean
to evil than good. Goodman Brown had at this point lost his faith in God, therefore there
was nothing restraining his instincts from moving towards evil because he had been lead
out from his utopian image of society. At this point, Goodman Brown goes mad and
challenges evil. He feels that he will be the downfall of evil and that he is strong enough to
overcome it all. This is another demonstration of Brown’s excessive pride and arrogance.
He believes that he is better than everyone else in that he alone can destroy evil. Brown
then comes upon the ceremony which is setup like a perverted Puritan temple. The altar
was a rock in the middle of the congregation and there were four trees surrounding the
congregation with their tops ablaze, like candles. A red light rose and fell over the
congregation which cast a veil of evil over the congregation over the devil worshippers.
Brown starts to take notice of the faces that he sees in the service and he recognizes them
all, but he then realizes that he does not see Faith and “hope came into his heart”. This is
the first time that the word “hope” ever comes into the story and it is because this is the
true turning point for Goodman Brown. If Faith was not there, as he had hoped, he would
not have to live alone in his community of heathens, which he does not realize that he is
already apart of. Another way that the hope could be looked at is that it is all one of “the
Christian triptych”. (Capps 25) The third part of the triptych which is never mentioned
throughout the story is charity. If Brown had had “charity” it would have been the
“antidote that would have allowed him to survive without despair the informed state in
which he returned to Salem.” (Camps 25) The ceremony then begins with a a cry to “Bring
forth the converts!” Surprisingly Goodman Brown steps forward. “He had no power to
retreat one step, nor to resist, even in thought…”. Goodman Brown at this point seems to
be in a trance and he loses control of his body as he is unconsciously entering this
service of converts to the devil. The leader of the service than addresses the crowd of
converts in a disturbing manner. He informs them that all the members of the
congregation are the righteous, honest, and incorruptible of the community. The sermon
leader then informs the crowd of their leader’s evil deeds such as attempted murder of the
spouse and wife, adultery, and obvious blasphemy. After his sermon, the leader informs
them to look upon each other and Goodman Brown finds himself face to face with Faith.
The leader begins up again declaring that “Evil is the nature of mankind” and he
welcomes the converts to “communion of your race”. (The “communion of your race”
statement reflects to the irony of Brown’s earlier statement that he comes from “a race of
honest men and good Christians.”) The leader than dips his hand in the rock to draw a
liquid from it and “to lay the mark of baptism upon their foreheads”. Brown than snaps out
from his trance and yells “Faith! Faith! Look up to Heaven and resist the wicked one!” At
this, the ceremony ends and Brown finds himself alone. He does not know whether Faith,
his wife, had kept her faith, but he finds himself alone which leads him to believe that he is
also alone in his faith. Throughout the story, Brown lacks emotion as a normal person
would have had. The closest Brown comes to showing an emotion is when “a hanging
twig, that had been all on fire, besprinkled his cheek with the coldest dew.” The dew on
his cheek represents a tear that Brown is unable to produce because of his lack of
emotion. Hawthorne shows that Brown has “no compassion for the weaknesses he sees
in others, no remorse for his own sin, and no sorrow for his loss of faith.” (Easterly 339)
His lack of remorse and compassion “condemns him to an anguished life that is spiritually
and emotionally dissociated.” (Easterly 341) This scene is an example of how Goodman
Brown chose to follow his head rather than his heart. Had Brown followed his heart, he
may have still lived a good life. If he followed with his heart, he would have been able to
sympathize with the community’s weaknesses, but instead, he listened to his head and
excommunicated himself from the community because he only thought of them as
heathens. “Young Goodman Brown” ends with Brown returning to Salem at early dawn
and looking around like a “bewildered man.” He cannot believe that he is in the same
place that he just the night before; because to him, Salem was no longer home. He felt like
an outsider in a world of Devil worshippers and because his “basic means of order, his
religious system, is absent, the society he was familiar with becomes nightmarish.” (Shear
545) He comes back to the town “projecting his guilt onto those around him.” (Tritt 114)
Brown expresses his discomfort with his new surroundings and his excessive pride when
he takes a child away from a blessing given by Goody Cloyse, his former Catechism
teacher, as if he were taking the child “from the grasp of the fiend himself.” His anger
towards the community is exemplified when he sees Faith who is overwhelmed with
excitement to see him and he looks “sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on
without a greeting.” Brown cannot even stand to look at his wife with whom he was at the
convert service with. He feels that even though he was at the Devil’s service, he is still
better than everyone else because of his excessive pride. Brown feels he can push his
own faults on to others and look down at them rather than look at himself and resolve his
own faults with himself. Goodman Brown was devastated by the discovery that the
potential for evil resides in everybody. The rest of his life is destroyed because of his
inability to face this truth and live with it. The story, which may have been a dream, and
not a real life event, planted the seed of doubt in Brown’s mind which consequently cut
him off from his fellow man and leaves him alone and depressed. His life ends alone and
miserable because he was never able to look at himself and realize that what he believed
were everyone else’s faults were his as well. His excessive pride in himself led to his
isolation from the community. Brown was buried with “no hopeful verse upon his
tombstone; for his dying hour was gloom