A Struggle in Faith in Goodness
Mark Colbert
Everest University Online
There are times in our lives where everything is not as it seems, for the people that we encounter in our lives we perceive them in a certain way and when the perception is shaken it makes us question who they are and shakes what values we had to the core. In Nathanel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown’ a man struggles with his faith during a journey through dark woods near his village of Salem. Hawthorne touches on the theme of how ones “faith” can be in question when put up against something that challenges it.
There is one quote that stands out when Young Goodman Brown first takes his journey onto the path and into his meeting with the dark stranger “having kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is my purpose now to return whence I came. I have scruples, touching the matter thou wot’st of.” This quote paints an image that Young Goodman Brown already has doubt about the journey he will take, seemingly like he has a feeling that what he might walk upon won’t be to his liking. This also gives an image of fear and doubt.
Another quote that resonates with me is when Young Goodman Brown hears familiar voices of towns-people. Throughout the scene Hawthorne paints a picture of doubt in which Goodman Brown hears the voice of his wife and a pink ribbon drops from the sky, he captures it and quotes “My Faith is gone!” “there is no good on earth: and sin is but a name. Come, devil! For to thee this world is given. At this point this quote could be taken as literal as what he has seen so far in his journey makes him question his faith even though the quote might refer to him possibly losing his wife whose name is Faith to something tragic. It can possibly foreshadow what comes next in his journey as he later
