ENG DB 5 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

ENG DB 5 - Essay Example In â€Å"Young Goodman Brown†, Hawthorne presents the idea that the Puritan religion, because of these beliefs, has lost all sense of meaning to the younger generations. In his journey through the dark woods and the events he witnesses there, Goodman Brown’s steps symbolize Hawthorne’s own doubts and observations about his religion based on his knowledge of what has gone before and the inevitable result of the Puritanical teachings he’s been part of. As Young Goodman Brown sets off on his dark journey, his young wife Faith implores him not to go, sensing some kind of immediate peril. The emphasis on young here indicates the journey Goodman Brown is proposing to undertake is a journey to find the necessary conversion experience deemed important in the Puritan religion of Hawthorne’s time. Without having gone through such a transformation, individual members were not considered to be full-fledged members of the congregation. As a newly married man, it would be among Goodman Brown’s chief concerns to establish himself as a member of the community and take his proper role as the head of a household. Yet, the fear expressed by Faith indicates there is a hidden peril in undertaking such a journey. Her warning, â€Å"may you find all well when you come back† (293), seems to indicate the peril does not apply strictly to Goodman Brown as he sets off on his journey, but for Faith as well in being left behind, alone in the darkness. The sense of foreboding in testing his own faith is further emphasized as Goodman Brown enters the forest â€Å"on his present evil purpose. He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind† (294). In this solitary journey, Hawthorne indicates that the doctrine of purposefully seeking challenges to a faith already weakened by church dictates is a highly dangerous proposition with the