Notes on "Young Goodman Brown" and "The Minister's Black Veil"

Bio Sketch--                *earliest ancestor, William Hathorne, ordered the whipping of a Quaker woman
*William’s son, John Hathorne, was one of the judges in the Salem witch trials      

*Hawthorne felt he was a failure in writing (as does Brown felt himself a failure)
            -destroyed Fanshawe
            -did not make much money until publishing of The Scarlet Letter

*short stories revealed moral complexities
*vision of the human condition was dark

"Young Goodman  Brown"

" 'YGB' [is] arguably Hawthorne's most thoughtful treatment of the Salem witch trials of 1692 [and] also helps to highlight his use of setting and symbolic spaces in The Scarlet Letter, especially the lure of the forest."--Leland Person (editor)

Textual Examples:

Tone—dark, bleak, depressing tone overall; the tone begins on a more positive note and digresses to a somber, negative one (demonstrating the movement from innocence to experience)

Movement from Innocence to Experience—

Innocence

*—referred to as “Young” at the beginning of the story
*—young wife
*—repeated reference to pink
*—tremor/fear of devil and sin
*—referred to as “simply clad” and “simple in manner”
*—“beginning of a journey”
*—refers to himself/family/community as “good Christians” and “a race of honest men”
*—“people of good work”; “people of prayer”
*—disbelief of the traveler
*—referred to as a “nice young man”
*—“applauded” himself and had  “clear conscience” for avoiding evil
*—reference to “calm”, “purely”, and “sweetly”
*—reference to stars (heaven)

 Experience

*—black cloud began to form over blue sky
*—reference to confusion and doubtfulness; indistinct, uncertain sorrow and grief
*—“cry of grief, rage and terror”
*—pink ribbon (Faith) falls down
*—says his “Faith is gone”
*—invites the devil to come to him
*—YGB steps forward as one of the converts from good to evil
*—felt a “loathful brotherhood”
*—reference to the wickedness in his heart
*—reference to YGB as a “wretched man”
*—textual (diction) references to changed man:  “bewildered, shrank, snatched, sternly, sadly, darkly meditative, distrustful, desperate, fearful, pale, scowled, muttered, hoary corpse”
*—final lines-“no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom”

Reality vs. Fantasy—Hawthorne’s choice of a nonrealistic narrative allows him to describe the night in the forest with an overwhelming vision of evil that realism could not accommodate; a protagonist in a realistic narrative may have been brought to the same point, but it would require a much longer narrative to make it possible 

Evidence of Allegory--           sin represented by the traveler
                                              faith/hope represented by Faith

Evidence of Allusion--            *overall reference to the “the fall” of Adam and Eve---Young Goodman Brown’s fall from faith can be seen as similar

*YGB cannot redeem himself by believing that everyone, though tainted by evil, can be forgiven by Incarnation and death of Jesus

*-reference to the serpent in the Garden of Eden, the traveler’s staff is characterized as “snake-like”

*-reference to Jesus—YGB will cling to the skirts and follow to heaven (referencing Faith)

*-reference to the Salem Witch Trials; refers to Martha Carrier (one of the women hanged in Salem in 1697 for witchcraft)

*-reference to the Holy Trinity-YGB and Faith have been married for 3 months

*-allusion to biblical magicians 

Evidence of Symbolism--       Faith’s pink ribbons/the ribbons “fall”, symbolizing YGB’s “fall” from faith; Symbolic meanings of "goodman" and "faith" 

Theme:a)Some people can be devastated by the discovery that the potential for evil resides in all of us; b)Many of us, through the movement from innocence to experience come to the  realization that there is an inevitable descent from faith and hope to disbelief and despair.

"The Minister's Black Veil"

"Hawthorne's early trying out of a character and situation he would develop into his portrait of Arthur Dimmesdale."--Leland Person

Tone: dark and bleak (common among Hawthorne's text)
    *-slow and quiet pace
    *-the mysterious emblem
    *-tinged more darkly than usual   
    *-sad smile

Character: (direct association between Reverend Hooper and Arthur Dimmesdale)
     *-gloom of Mr. Hooper's temperament
     *-a sad smile (repeated)
     *-the black veil. . . throws its influence over the whole person, and makes him ghost-like from head to foot
      *-that piece of crepe. . . seemed to hang down before his heart (direct association/Dimmesdale covers heart)
 

Signification of the Veil (Symbolic References)
*-it is but a mortal veil
*-cover it for a secret sin
*-hide your face under the consciousness of secret sin
*-hoarded  iniquity of deed or thought

Theme: "The real struggle of the tale is not between Hooper and the others but between conscious and unconscious thoughts within each individual."--F. Crews