Isolation In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

Nathaniel Hawthorne “was born on July 4, 1804” (Carton 2). When he lost his father, at age four, it was so devastating because he never had the privilege of knowing who his father was. When a child loses a parent at such a young age, the imagination creates pretend memories. When he was old enough, he began searching for facts to fill in the gaps of those memories. “He supplemented the images of his father’s nautical life that he gleamed from the logbooks by reading travel narratives, histories, and adventure stories about the exotic regions Nathaniel Hathorne had sailed” (Carton 147). Following his completion in college, Hawthorne spent “twelve years of self-imposed isolation” researching “local New England History” that would be used in some …show more content…
In what may be a dream, Brown chooses to leave his wife, Faith, who represents all that is good and holy, for one night on some unnamed evil purpose. Brown enters a forest that is dark and scary and meets the devil who is disguised as an older version of Brown. Perhaps the devil looked similar to Brown because he was looking into his soul, at his own sinfulness. “This acts as a projection of himself as the embodiment of evil” (Jacobs 2). Many times Brown wishes to go back to his wife and away from the evil task. Brown tells the devil, “My father never went into the woods on such an errand, nor his father before him. We have been a race of honest men and good Christians” (Hawthorne 1124). Hawthorne also believed his paternal ancestors, who were Puritans, were honest and good Christians. However, historical facts proved otherwise. When the devil tells Brown that his father and grandfather were not good Christian men, Hawthorne is telling his readers that his ancestors were not either. The devil laughs at Brown and tells him, “I have been well acquainted with your family as with ever a one among the Puritans; and that’s no trifle to say. I helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through the streets of Salem” (Hawthorne 1124). The grandfather in this passage was inspired by Hawthorne’s great-great grandpa William …show more content…
A strong-armed fellow is that constable; and each time he flourishes his lashes in the air, you see a frown wrinkling his brow, and at the same instant a smile upon his lips. He loves his business, faithful officer that he is, and puts his soul into every stroke, zealous to fulfil the injunction of Major Hathorne’s warrant, in the spirit and to the letter. There came down a stroke that has drawn blood! Ten such stripes are to be given in Salem, ten in Boston, and ten in Dedham; and, with those thirty stripes of blood upon her, she is to be driven into the forest. . . Heaven grant that, as the rain of so many years has wept upon it, time after time, and washed it all away, so there may have been a dew of mercy, to cleanse this cruel blood-stain out of the record of the persecutor’s life (Miller