Deconstructing Young Goodman Brown
... After searching out the binary oppositions in a piece of literature, such as “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorn, it is important to then turn the original interpretations of these words upside down and look for other meanings. ... Hawthorne perhaps wanted us to base our views of the title character partly on his name, Young Goodman Brown. Young is seen in many cultures as naïve and ignorant to the ways of life. ... Particularly in American society, young age is also privileged. ... I saw Goodman in this way as well; he was not yet broken down by life and was unwilling to submit to evil. There also lies a binary opposition in Goodman Brown’s name between ‘good’ and ‘Brown’. Brown is a common last name and suggests that he was an ordinary man. ... Faith, Goodman Brown’s wife, is essential to his resistance to evil. The story begins with Goodman leaving Faith to embark on a journey of ‘evil purpose’. Faith, his wife, can be literally interpreted as the presence of Goodman’s faith. ... When Goodman leaves Faith, he encounters Satan, implying that if he had not left his faith behind, the entire experience could have been avoided.