Witches In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

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In The Young Goodman Brown, the core character, Brown experiences a terrible trail. This trial consisted of one objective, entering the forest and joining a secret sect of witches. However, as Brown continues his journey into the forest more facts concerning his past are revealed. These revelations come from people Brown considered holy in his life, such as Goody Closy and the Deacon. However, both of these individuals are witches whose only goal is to remove Brown’s humanity. For Young Goodman Brown, the experience is a self revelation of his heritage. Soon after starting his journey, Brown meets an old man in the woods. The old man is described as such: “Bearing a considerable resemblance to him, though, perhaps more in expression than features. Still they might have been father and son” (191). The ambiguity of this statement allows for a little leeway to say that the old man and …show more content…
In response, brown cries out “My Faith is gone!” (197). This line is heavily laden since Faith is Brown’s wife, his one connection to humanity. Once this is gone, the text no longer describes Brown as a man, and chooses to describe him as horror: “But he himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from the other horrors” (197). Brown is revealed for what he truly is without Faith: a monster that is beyond horror. Once this layer is removed, Brown does not show any fear of the woods or its inhabitants (198). Rather than showing fear, Brown gives air to the fact that he is the lead monster: “On he flew among the black pines, brandishing his staff with frenzied gestures, now giving vent to an inspiration of horrid blasphemy, and now shouting forth such laughter as set all the echoes of the forest laughing like demons around him” (198). Here is where the monster is revealed, by flying through the woods and making it roar in laughter, Brown has accepted his
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