Nathaniel Hawthorne's Obsession with Obsession
.... Brown’s obsession surfaces here, when he cannot decide between good or evil. He spends most of the night changing his mind sporadically, never quite sure what the correct decision is. He tells the devil that his main deterrence from turning over to the dark side, lays in the existence of his wife, “There is my wife, Faith. It would break her dear little heart; and I’d rather break my own” (Hawthorne 38). The devil surprisingly understands this predicament, but despite Brown’s mental torment over the decision he must make, Satan takes it upon himself to show Brown some people of the town which were formerly considered good, but were in actuality quite sinful. Among them is Goody Cloyse, who taught Brown catechism as a child. Again Brown struggles with his decision, seeing this woman of the cloth so easily overcome by darker forces. His mind obsesses over the decision he must make and finally Brown says, “What if a wretched old woman does choose to go to the devil when I thought she was going to heaven: is that any reason why I should quit my dear Faith and go after her?” (Hawthorne 40). Goodman Brown is convinced to sit a while in the wood before turning back home by the devil. Hawthorne explains Brown’s sense of accomplishment, “The young man sat a few moments by the roadside, applauding himself greatly, and thinking with how clear a conscience he should meet the minister in his morning walk, nor shrink from the eye of good old Deacon Gookin” (Hawthorne 40). Although Goodman Brown seems to have come to the conclusion of his personal conflict, he has not. Only moments after Brown made his “decision” Deacon Gookin and the minister ride by on their way to the devil’s meeting. Of course, Goodman Brown starts obsessing again as to whether or not he should be at the meeting too. There are some brief moments of hysteria while Brown tries to pull himself together enough to cry out, “With heaven above and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the devil!” (Hawthorne 41). But of course Hawthorne adds another twist to the story by making Faith become a devil worshiper too, or at least making Goodman Brown think she is a devil worshiper. Here, Brown falls back into the recesses of his obsession. He deliberates for a short while before exclaiming, “My Faith is gone! There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil; for to thee is this world given” (Hawthorne 42). Finally Goodman Brown is off to the devil worshiper meeting. Upon arrival he spots a figure that resembles his dear wife. The sight somehow makes Brown unsure about his decision once more and with a shrill cry he yells, “Faith! Faith! Look up to heaven and resist the wicked one” (Hawthorne 46). At this final moment, Brown seems to awaken from a dream and finds himself walking through town from the direction of the wood. His obsession about turning to the devil or Faith seems to drag on. Hawthorne describes the aftermath of Goodman’s night in the forest, “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” (Hawthorne 47). Poor Goodman Brown seems to be doomed to obsess over evil for the rest of his life. Like Goodman Brown, Parson Hooper in “The Minister’s Black Veil” also obsesses over evil. In Parson Hooper’s case, he specifically obsesses over his secret sin. He very creatively hides his secret sin by covering his face with a veil, “Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his face, so low as to be shaken by his breath” (Hawthorne 91). The entire congregation, which, he presides over, is completely shaken up by his ghostly appearance behind the black veil. Hooper even preaches about secret sin. Hawthorne describes one on his sermons, “The subject had reference to secret sin, and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own consciousness” (Hawthorne 92). Although Hooper obsesses deeply over his own personal secret sin, he refuses to reveal it even to his wife. He simply tells her, “I, perhaps, like most other mortals, have sorrows dark enough to be typified by a black veil” (Hawthorne 97). It appears that Hooper wears the veil not only as a symbol of his own secret sin, but also as a reflection of all other’s secret sins. The townspeople only subconsciously realize that the veil symbolizes their sin as well in the story by displaying behavior that makes them seem uncomfortable around the veiled parson. Instead of focusing on their own secret sins though, they gossip mercilessly about the troubled clergyman, “This was what gave plausibility to the whispers, that Mr. Hooper’s conscience tortured him for some great crime too horrible to be entirely concealed, or otherwise than so obscurely intimated” (Hawthorne 99). Hawthorne does describe briefly that some citizens of the small town realized their sin from the wearing of the veil, “By the aid of his mysterious emblem-he became a man of awful power over souls that were in agony for sin” (Hawthorne 99). Mr. Hooper seems not only obsessed with wearing the veil in honor of his secret sin, but also in punishing himself with the veil. Hawthorne says that the veil, “separated him from cheerful brotherhood and woman’s love, and kept him in that saddest of all prisons, his own heart” (Hawthorne 100-101). Even as Mr. Hooper approached his own death some years later, he would not have the veil taken from his face. His secret sin totally consumed his life. As he lay on his death bed, the minister at his side asked him, “And is it fitting, that a man so given to prayer, of such blameless example, holy in deed and thought, so far as mortal judgment may pronounce; is it fitting that a father in the church should leave a shadow on his memory, that may seem to blacken a life so pure?” (Hawthorne 101). To this Mr. Hooper remained silent until the minister tried to take the veil off his face. At that very moment Mr. Hooper jerked out of bed in order to keep the veil on. His obsession would follow him into death. Hawthorne’s stories about deep obsession do not end there. “Ethan Brand” was written about a man who was obsessed over the search for the Unpardonable Sin. In the story, a man named Bartram worked as a lime-burner. Bartram observed his place of work, where Ethan Brand once stood, “The kiln, however, on the mountain-side, stoop unimpaired, and wa...