I have some question about Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown.

[truth_forest]

I 've just read it but the language is hard to understand...
What is Faith do after he came to the forest and why does he change his feeling to Faith?
Is it about the salem witchcraft hysteria?
and what is the symbolic in the story?

plz help me
thank you

[xcgurl99]

Faith is signifigant in that she is no longer the sweet trustworthy woman he can love. She is now someone he will constantly align with the devil, whether or not she actually joined him that night in the woods or if it was just a dream.
This has nothing to do with the salem with trials it is most likely in the 1700's as that was when Hawthorne's father lived and Goodman Brown is meant to represent his father while the other 2 Goodman Browns mentioned are Hawthornes ancstors.
The symbolism is simply that Hawthonre is trying to repent for the sins of his ancestors and that this like the Scarlett Letter can be read as a pshycological autobiography. It also is symbolic in that the Goodman is trying to do the right thing even though his ancestors and everyone he ever trusted (is. Faith and his sunday school teacher) is doing the wrong thing by joinign with the devil.
hope this helped

[pandora]

The name Faith itself has its own significiant.It has two crucial points: first it is Y.G.Brown's pue, faithful wife.Second it symbolizes Brown's own faith.That means it symbolizes duality between good and evil.ıt is obvious that Brown's own faith has its duality, because human nature is full of with duality between pure evil and good.

And Brown's wife has pink ribbons.It is also important to note the fact between good&evil.The color pink is combination of red and white.Red is the symbols of danger, evil,darkness.On the other hand white means purity, claer thoughts.Thsn it is clear Faith(wife) also is a dual character in the story.She is between good&evil.

In the forest while Brown is there, he hears his wife's, his teacher's voices there.That identifies the duality in human beings.

[aeroport]

Also, the forest seems to always play a symbolic role in Hawthorne, as it is where the more secretive of dealings take place - the bizzare devil's celebration in YGB, Hester's meetings with Arthur in SL, and so on. An additional potential allegorical (lots of "al"s there, sorry) doohickey is the name Goody Cloyse for that kind/evil old lady. Goody = fem. "Goodman", common title of respect, indicative of "decency"; "Cloyse" - one of two syllables in "cloister". The whole tale is obviously one of unsettling apprehensions of hypocrisy and such, but also it obviously serves as an allegory for the general, run-of-the-mill fellow: "Goodman" - as explained above; "Brown" - simply a common last name: normal, common man loses his "faith". I'm unclear on the details at the moment; it's been several months since last I read it. But that is what I remember.

[Mhottie12006]

What does Hawthorne mean by "communion of your race"

[acotty]

"Communion of your race?" I haven't located that in the text, but considering he's talking to Satan(in the guise of his father, no less) while he's walking through the woods, I'd say it supports the theme of the story, which is corruption and mistrust. Since YGB emerges from this episode paranoid and mistrustful of everyone, he lives the remainder of his long life in misery. Basically, the quote is Satan saying that the pious appearance of the village people is false and the communion is actually with the devil. So, a bastardization of the Christian Communion.

[Gigi]

If your question is 'why did Brown become leary about Faith after the events in the forest took place' then my answer/inerpretation is that Because to Brown it seemed that everyone who had ever been in his life - people he trusted and thought to be good were at the evil congregation in the forest, and in the end Faith was there too. When brown yells to Faith to reject the devil with all her will he never saw what happened next, because one moment he and Faith were about to become part of this evil secret society and the next minute everything dissapeared and all was silent and no one was in the forest except Brown. He didn't know if what had just happned was real or not. He left the forest a changed man -forever broken and unsure of himself or other's -including Faith. Was she part of the evil society? he would never know and therefore always doubted her goodnes and every other human for that matter.

[DigitalLove]

When I first read this in college I thought it was the coolest story I had ever read. I still enjoy reading it. It leaves the reader with a lot of questions. There is just an aura of mystery about it. It haunts you. I've enjoyed reading the comments above and I would love to hear anyone else shed more light on it.