From "Young Goodman Brown" (1835) by Nathaniel Hawthorne

From "Young Goodman Brown" (1835)

Reprinted in The American Tradition in Literature in 1974

"Young Goodman Brown," a short story by nineteenth-century American fiction writer Nathaniel Hawthorne (see biography entry), was based on the history of his Puritan ancestors and the New England of his own day. Hawthorne documented Puritan hypocrisy in many of his stories (which he called "tales"), such as The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of Seven Gables (1851). One of his best-known tales is "Young Goodman Brown"(1835), which tells the story of a young, devout Puritan named Goodman Brown. One evening he leaves his wife, Faith, at home in Salem while he takes a walk in the woods. Disappointed to learn that others have been on the path before him, he happens upon a witches' sabbath, where he is shocked to see his own wife. Sick at heart, he returns to Salem the next morning. He has been changed from a happy and youthful man to a confused and bitter man, who goes to his grave convinced that the world is full of sinners.

The following excerpt is the conclusion of "Young Goodman Brown." It opens just after Brown has seen Faith, and he is still upset and shocked from the experience. He cannot decide whether it was a dream or reality. (Hawthorne frequentlyused actual historical figures in his stories; notice that here he mentions Goodie Cloyse, who was Sarah Cloyce, one of the condemned witches in the Salem trials.)

• Nathaniel Hawthorne was born over one hundred years after the end of the Salem, Massachusetts, witch craze.
• Hawthorne's ancestors had an especially strong impact on his imagination and on his name (Nathaniel added the "w" to his last name in order to separate himself from the evil acts of his ancestors). William Hathorne settled in Boston in the 1630s and was involved in the persecution of Quakers (members of the Society of Friends). William's son John was one of the chief judges in the Salem witchcraft trials (see Chapters 3 and 4).

"Faith! Faith!" cried the husband [Goodman Brown], "look up to heaven, and resist the wicked one."

Whether Faith obeyed he knew not. Hardly had he spoken when he found himself amid calm night and solitude, listening to a roar of the wind which died heavily away through the forest. He staggered against the rock, and felt it chill and damp; while a hanging twig, that had been all on fire, besprinkled his cheek with the coldest dew.

The next morning young Goodman Brown came slowly into the street of Salem village, staring around him like a bewildered man. The good old minister was taking a walk along the graveyard to get an appetite for breakfast and meditate his sermon, and bestowed a blessing, as he passed, on Goodman Brown. He shrank from the venerable saint as if to avoid anathema. Old Deacon Gookin was at domestic worship, and the holy words of his prayer were heard through the open window. "What God doth the wizard pray to?"quoth Goodman Brown. Goody Cloyse [Sarah Cloyce], that excellent old Christian, stood in the early sunshine at her own lattice, catechizing a little girl who had brought her a pint of morning's milk. Goodman Brown snatched away the child as from the grasp of the fiend himself. Turning the corner by the meeting house, he spied the head of Faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at sight of him that she skipped along the street and almost kissed her husband before the whole village. But Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face and passed on without a greeting.

Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-meeting?

Be it so if you will; but, alas! It was a dream of evil omen for young Goodman Brown. A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not desperate man did he become from the night of that fearful dream. On the Sabbath day, when the congregation were singing a holy psalm, he could not listen because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear and drowned all the blessed strain. When the minister spoke from the pulpit with power and fervid eloquence, and, with his hand on the open Bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives and triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did Goodman Brown turn pale, dreading lest the roof should thunder down upon the gray blasphemer and his hearers. Often, awaking suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith; and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away. 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.

Hawthorne went on to write The Scarlet Letter, which is the most widely read of his literary works. In 1852 Hawthorne was appointed overseas U.S. consul (official government representative)at Liverpool, England, where he served from 1853 to 1857. Upon returning to the United States in 1860, he and his wife settled into their first real home at Concord. After a mysterious illness, and refusing to take medical attention, in 1864 Hawthorne died in his sleep. Before his death he had started writing four new books, none of which was ever completed.

• Nathaniel Hawthorne believed that what one generation of a family did came back to haunt later generations. He believed it so strongly that it even showed up in one of his books, The House of the Seven Gables (which also happens to be a house in what used to be Salem Village): "the wrongdoing of one generation lives into the successive ones."

solitude: to be alone

meditate: to think about

sermon: a religious speech given as part of a worship service

bestowed: gave

venerable: regarded with respect

anathema: the rejection of something because it is believed to be cursed

domestic: home-bound

lattice: fence

catechizing: giving religious instruction

fiend: Satan

omen: an occurrence believed to predict a future event

psalm: (pronounced SALM) a sacred song or poem used in worship

anthem: a long song or hymn

pulpit: an elevated platform used in preaching or conducting worship service

fervid: passionate

eloquence: expressiveness

blasphemer: one who seems not to care about rules and morals

Edited by Sculley Bradley and others

Bradley, Sculley, and others, ed. The American Tradition in Literature. New York: Gossett and Dunlap, 1974.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Young Goodman Brown. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

The Hawthorne Treasury: Complete Novels and Selected Tales of Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York: Modern Library, 1999.

This is the complete article, containing 1,145 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page).