Essays /
Goodman Brown's Epiphany Essay [8]
Here is my essay, due today... any proofing would be helpful. Thanks to Sean and Kevin for the advice!
Loss of the Rose-colored Glasses
When deciding to test one's faith, sometimes the age old question of, "Do I really want to know?" is forgotten. Sometimes the testing of one's faith results in a strengthening of it. Other times, the result is opposite and leads to a shattering of faith. Some people grow and others wither. The latter is seen in the story, "Young Goodman Brown," by Nathaniel Hawthorne. A man testing his faith cannot always see the impending danger in doing so. During Goodman Brown's venture into the woods turns his entire view of the world around him is upside down. In leaving his wife, who appropriately goes by the name of "Faith," and venturing into the dark woods, he looses the rose colored glasses that he sees the people around him through. After this life changing experience he is no longer naïve to the presence of evil in the people he knows to be good. Goodman Brown's experience, whether a dream or a reality, changes his view of the world around him for the worst.
Hawthorne allows the reader to see enough of the man before his walk on the dark side to contrast with the character he becomes after his journey. The Goodman Brown who begins this journey is a man of Christian values and possibly blind faith, coming from a strong line of family passing down the same beliefs. These Puritans are not ones who journey into to the dark woods. Goodman Brown tells his companion that they are "a race of honest men and good Christians."(17) He also informs the evil one that he is the first one to take "this path." (17) He insists that it is time to turn back and return home, showing that he does not want to venture too far. Up to this point, Goodman Brown is acting on curiosity. His faith is waning but not completely disintegrating.
Slowly but surely, the occurrences in the woods start to whittle away at the base of Goodman Brown's faith. The companion in the woods takes it upon himself to chip away at one important piece of security in Goodman Brown's faith: the righteousness of his family line and village elders. The elder traveler first discredits the Brown family righteousness by informing Brown that he had taken the same journey with his father and grandfather. Furthering this he says, "They were my good friends, both; and many a pleasant walk have we had along this path..." (19) Goodman still holds fast to his faith in spite of this by saying that he will feel shame upon 'meeting the eyes" of his minister come the next Sabbath-day. (21) The next curve ball thrown at Brown is seeing the woman who is a prominent figure in his religious background, Goody Cloyse, being friendly with the "devil" companion. As if this is not a powerful enough blow in itself, she describes the devil as taking on the form of Goodman Brown's very own grandfather. (30-31) The next blow comes as he hears the voices of Deacon Gookin and his own minister on their way to a meeting in the darkness. This discovery weakens Brown so that he clings to a tree, "doubting whether there really was a Heaven above him." (45) The final blow to his resolve follows immediately as he hears the voice of his wife Faith among many familiar voices heard in his village, echoing through the darkness of the forest. He cries out to her desperately, and hears nothing but a scream in reply. The ribbon from Faith's bonnet floats down to him from the sky. With this final realization, the rose-colored glasses that Goodman Brown sees the world around him through are gone. The foundation of his faith, the righteousness of those around him, is now a pile of rubble.
Thus begins the final stretch to Goodman Brown's realization that will change his view on good in the world forever. Crazy with melancholy and grief, and devoid of the faith that once kept him grounded, Brown runs through the woods like a wild man taunting the people he now sees as evil. Brown's "inspiration of horrid blasphemy" (52) propels him through the woods until he stands at the outskirts of a ritual. Here, all walks of life come to commune with the devil himself. Here, pious and irreverent stand together to watch the conversion of others to the "Wicked one." This "Shape of Evil," directs the converts to view the congregation, noting that those whom they hold as models of godliness are there to worship him. (64)
In hearing that virtue is only an illusion and wickedness is the only source of happiness, Goodman Brown has a revelation. All of the insight he gains on his journey in the forest, the deconstruction of his faith, reinforces this statement. He is no longer naïve to the evil nature of people, regardless of appearance and deed. His faith in an inherent goodness in the world is now an awareness of an inherent evil.
Regardless of whether or not the venture into the woods and the ceremony he sees there are reality or a dream, Goodman Brown sees the world around him differently from that moment on. He does not lose his faith in God, but his faith in the people around him whom he considers godly. Sadly for him, the two appear intertwined. He appears happier before his revelation of the real darkness in the world around him. Before his journey on the dark side, he sees the people around him as good based on their deeds as "Christians." During his trek through the forest he gains insight into what these people whom he holds on a pedestal are capable of. He feels as if he now knows the true nature of mankind; evil. Upon his arrival into town he snatches a child away from Goody Cloyse as she catechizing her. He compares it to taking her out of the "grasp of the fiend himself." This reference to the "fiend" shows that he sees the presence of the devil in the alleged good Christian people around him. (71) When he ventures out into the night, he parts ways with his wife exchanging a kiss and thinks of her as a "blessed angel on Earth." (7) When she tries to greet him as he is returning, he passes by her with a stern look. He now sees the minister and the congregation as "a blasphemer and his hearers." Listening to the sermons of the "sacred truths" and "saint-like lives" brings him fear that the roof might fall in on them. The signing of the psalms by the congregation is now heard as "an anthem of sin."(72) Goodman Brown's epiphany resulted in no joy. "A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not desperate man, did he become from the night of that fearful dream." (72)
It is the view of this reader that Nathaniel Hawthore's theme in "Young Goodman Brown" is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. When he gets a vision outside of his rose-colored lenses, Goodman Brown goes off the proverbial deep end. Just because there is evil in the world, does not mean that the world is not good as well. Even though people may not be exactly as they appear does not mean that there is some validity in their appearances.
Goodman Brown takes a walk on the dark-side. He does not see the danger in doing so, possibly believing that his faith is strong enough to bring him back. Ironically his faith is what he loses. It is often thought that wearing rose-colored glasses is a bad thing, that knowledge is power. Yet, knowledge does not always bring happiness. The age old saying of "ignorance is bliss," rings true for Brown. While the world has the potential for evil it has the same potential for good.