Hawthorne’s
Variation on a Theme
In the musical Jekyll
and Hyde, a song reads, “There’s a face that we wear in the cold light of
day—it’s society’s mask...There’s a face that we hide/ till the nighttime
appears/ and what’s hiding inside...is our true self.” During the Romantic Era,
artists, composers, and writers put an emphasis on topics such as these.
Nathaniel Hawthorne in particular delt with the nature of humans. Hawthorne’s
“Young Goodman Brown” describes what happens when “each man you meet...isn’t
one man but two,” as the song continues.
Hawthorne implied the theme, just by writing with a
Romantic background: Appearances sometimes misrepresent reality. At the
beginning of the story, Goodman goes into the woods and encounters a stranger. The
stranger—actually the Devil in human form—and Goodman soon meet Goody Cloyse,
who speaks to Satan: “Ah, forsooth, and is it your worship indeed?...But, would
your worship believe it? my broomstick hath strangely disappeared, stolen, I
suspect...when I was all anointed with the juice of smallage, and cinquefoil,
and wolf’s bane.” At this point, Goodman says, “That old woman taught me my
catechism” and Hawthorne describes that sentence as having “a world of meaning”—but
only implies the meaning. Goodman does know that something is not what it seems,
as he grew up near Goody Cloyse, who acted like an upright, Christian lady.
However, if she believed in Jesus, she would not mix smallage (used in a
soothing tea), cinquefoil (good for inflammation and gastrointestinal issues),
and wolf’s bane (a poison) together, especially right before going into the
woods at night. If she had simply mixed smallage and cinquefoil together, she
would have aroused less suspicions, as she could have heard of a sickly child or
mother and gone to help, like many Christian women feel their duty. But, she mixed
a witch’s brew instead.
Next, the stranger leaves Goodman and walks ahead,
apparently to the “communion.” While sitting by the side of the road, Goodman
sees two shadows that do not look
like anything recognizable, but sound
like the deacon and minister, two men who previously appeared as upright, Christian
inhabitants of Salem. However, they talk of “several of the Indian powwows,
who, after their fashion, know almost as much deviltry as the best of us.” Based
on the words “know almost as much deviltry as the best of us,” one can assume
the deacon and minister had no intention of holding a church service in the
Indian village or going on a trading expedition—both natural reasons in 17th
century New England to visit Indians. They intended to hold a witchcraft rite, which
from Hawthorne’s description, sounds like a corruption of the holy Office of
Baptism and also the Rite of Confirmation. Goodman also begins to believe Appearances
sometimes misrepresent reality.
If things are not necessarily what they seem, then
Goodman cannot trust anything. He did believes he could only trust Faith and presumably
God, until “something fluttered lightly down through the air and caught on the
branch of a tree...and [Goodman] beheld a pink ribbon.” Apparently, he cannot
trust his wife, Faith. The pink ribbon, which Faith often wore, causes Goodman
say, “Come, devil; for to thee is this world given.” He gives up trust in God,
since if he cannot trust humans, he knew not how to trust God, for those in the
story who profess to follow God are really serving Satan. St. Paul warns of
this, saying “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking
for someone to devour” but, as St. Paul was also a human, Goodman could not
even go to that passage of the Bible for help.
“Young Goodman Brown” has a theme which indicates that a
falsity may look true. Hawthorne ends the story with Goodman Brown’s fate: “And
when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave a hoary corpse, followed by
Faith, an aged woman, and children and grandchildren, a goodly procession,
besides neighbors not a few, they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone,
for his dying hour was gloom.” During the course of the story, Goodman Brown
loses faith in God and man because even the holy men had devilish natures. As
the song finishes, “It’s a nightmare/ we can never discard/ so we stay on our
guard/ though we love the façade/...Look behind the façade!”
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