Young Goodman Brown Research Paper

Words: 1362
Pages: 6

In the story “Young Goodman Brown,” author Nathaniel Hawthorne makes some tangents with events that occurred in the seventeenth century. He does this as the story takes place during the time of when Salem Village was encountering several problems and making parallels to these events makes the theme more realistic. The story of Young Goodman Brown begins with him having to leave his wife to go on a journey in which his wife doesn’t know the truth about. His wife desires he wait until sunrise because she is afraid that sleeping the night without him might lead her to bad dreams. He tells her to pray before she sleeps and then nothing bad will happen to her. Goodman Brown sets off to a journey through a forest throughout the night contemplating on a decision that ends with a changed life for him. As the story goes on he encounters several temptations that ultimately lead him into the hands of the devil. However, …show more content…
Author Nathaniel Hawthorne references the event of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 from the Puritan’s history. “In ‘Young Goodman Brown’ the religious diction, Puritanical inspiration, and the association of Indians with the devil are products of the author’s environment and the context of the setting (Kennedy, 2012).” The Salem Witch Trials was regarding accusations directed at individuals who were supposedly practicing witchcraft. As a result, 20 individuals were executed. Later on, it was discovered that the trials were a mistake and the families who suffered for unjustly were then compensated (Blumberg, 2007). At this period in time, Christianity was known to be the dominating religion and practicing witchcraft was underlying that there was a power given by Devil worshippers to harm others. Therefore, to prevent this from getting to far they had to banish these individuals by executing