Young Goodman Brown

Guilt guilt guilt.

This is the recurring theme behind Hawthorne's tale of perhaps man's greatest evil: suspicion. This 1835 story comes right in time, to follow Cotton Mather's incendiary 'On Witchcraft." Hawthorne, who was born in Salem, and had to bear witness to the horrors of the Witch trials; later in his life, he would have to bear the generational guilt.

Hawthorne even says: "The spirit of my Puritan ancestors is mighty in me."

I can't help but compare this suffrage Hawthorne suffers for his father's generation, to the pain Art Speigleman wrestles with in his graphic memoir: "Maus," in which he grapples with his father's time in Auschwitz, and questions his worth in comparison to what his father, Vladek, went through.

I cannot help but imagine Nathaniel feeling pains for his writing's commercial success despite the dark nature of his work, particularly Goodman Brown. His mannerisms reflect this: he was known as reclusive, impenetrable, compassionate yet spiteful. His entire generation was one of alienation, greed and violence.

At any rate, the story, in short:

Goodman Brown mysteriously stalks out of his home, leaving behind his wife, Fate (like that's not an obvious symbol Nate...) and into the woods. At the time, unchecked wilderness, which was 90% of the American continent then, was nothing but a breeding place for great evil. So, bizarrely and out of character for good man like Goodman Brown, he travels into the depths of the wilderness and ends up meeting who we can assume is the devil; worse yet, he sees all the good townsfolk participating in some sort of Satanic ceremony, perhaps all becoming witches. Bad news bears. Brown goes home to Faith, but is disenchanted, untrustworthy, you know, all the stuffs that makes awful and frightening neighbors, the kind you had during the witch trials.

"Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch meeting?" Asks the narrative. "Brown turned pale, dreading les tthe roof should thunder down upon the gray blasphemers and his hearers." Reacts Goodman, obviously wrought with distrust.

I draw another cultural connection, Meryil Streep in the film Doubt, in which she defies faith (HA) and her oath in order to preserve (in her opinion) the well being of her students. This is so like the pious committees of witch judges, not unlike a guilty Hawthorne's fathers.