Deception In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown
Has your mind ever played tricks on you? In the story “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the main character, Goodman Brown, seems to experience just that. He’s travelling through the forest with another man who can only be described as the devil himself, and at the end of the story the reader is left to wonder if anything that took place even truly happened. Hawthorne uses many literary devices to convey that deception comes in many shapes and forms, the worst of which can be your own mind.
Sometimes, this deception can alter your perception of the past. This is seen in this quote from the story:
“He had cast up his eyes in astonishment, and, looking down again, beheld neither Goody Cloyse nor the serpentine staff, but his fellow
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Goody Cloyse, the woman who taught him his catechism – the very principles of his religion, his faith if you will – is apparently well-acquainted with the man Brown is travelling with, the devil. At this point, Brown becomes aware that what he knows of his past may be incorrect, as someone who taught him what he knows – what he believes – is not quite who he believes her to be. It shows that he was deceived as a child – or he is being deceived now, believing what the devil wants him to believe.
Occasionally, deception can alter how you see the environment in which you are placed, such as in the following excerpt from the story:
“Young Goodman Brown caught hold of a tree for support, being ready to sink down on the ground, faint and overburdened with the heavy sickness of his heart. He looked up to the sky, doubting whether there really was a heaven above him. Yet there was the blue arch, and the stars brightening in it.” In the above quote, Brown is recovering from seeing holy men – the minister and deacon of his town’s church – out so far in the dark forest, which is considered to be the devil’s realm. He’s questioning what he knows to be true, even the very existence of the sky and stars above him, bright lights illuminating the heavens. The men he knows to be good and holy have deceived him as long as he has known them… or perhaps he’s simply reading too much into their presence there in the
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