The names: (are symbolic and representative of their personalities)

Young Goodman Brown - Brown’s youth and good nature are symbolized by his name.
Brown’s youth suggests that he is an uncorrupted, innocent young man, naive and new at life.
H “he represents the young person’s introduction into human ways. It is important that his
innocence should derive from his youth.

Also, Goodman (used formerly as a courtesy title before the surname of a man not of
noble birth) represents you and me, the everyman, the ordinary man of that time who is
vulnerable to suspicion and self-doubt. At the end he feels everyone is capable of some evil,
even if they appear to be the most pious in the community.

Faith - suggests that Brown’s wife embodies the goodness that is found in a young wife.
She symbolizes Brown's spiritual faith. When he sees her in the forest at the witches' sabbath,
he realizes he is in danger of losing not only his wife but also his spiritual faith. She will represent
Brown's religious conviction throughout the tale, his childlike spirituality at the beginning of the
story.

Pink ribbons - represents her purity. The color pink is associated with innocence and
happiness, and ribbons themselves are a modest, innocent decoration. So it symbolizes the
purity and innocence involved with her. It also represents naivety. Hawthorne uses pink color as
a symbol four times in the story. In addition, in the Bible scarlet represents sin while white
signifies purity, “White” stands for innocence and purity, while “red” stands for taint and stain.
Thus, this symbol represents the blend of purity and sin. In addition, Hawthorne mentions "Faith,
with pink ribbons" inferring his faith takes on this blend of purity and sin.

"But something fluttered lightly down through the air, and caught on the branch of a tree.
The young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon." (189). This symbolizes Brown's loss of his
Faith, referring to both his wife and his faith in mankind, as she hovers over toward the devil's
gathering.

Faith & Goodman - Brown’s marriage to Faith symbolizes that he clings to a faith in good
in the world. It can mean his simple and unquestioned attachment to abstract Faith. “What, my
sweet, pretty wife, dost thou doubt me already, and we but three months married?” Brown is
poised somewhere between superficial attachment to Faith and deep thoughts about what he
will encounter in the forest. Goodman Brown is first described as young and newly married. His
wife's name is Faith, a detail that bears significance to the theme. Within the context of the story,
we could symbolically view Goodman Brown as a believer, a follower of God, albeit a young one.
His connection to "Faith" is also young and still being established. He does not yet
completely cling to faith, which can be seen from his thoughts about leaving on this "journey",
away from his wife Faith for the evening.

Faith vs. Evil - Christianity historically has been a religion of obedience and piety much
more than one of reason or logic, as much as the framers of the Age of Reason would like to
argue otherwise. As the story opens, we find Faith characterized by childlike confidence and
purity, contrasted with the man with the snakelike staff (Hawthorne 266), who attempts to
persuade Goodman Brown by reasoning as we go (265). Faith, it should be noted, does not
attempt to dissuade her husband out of his intentions through reason but through affection; with
her lips . . . close to his ear (264), she asks Goodman Brown not to go into the forest on his
mysterious errand.

While Faith represents the known establishments surrounding Brown, the forest,
described as "an unseen multitude" filled with "innumerable trunks and thick boughs overhead,"
represents the ever complicated unknowns of human nature and the subconscious.

“My Faith is gone!' cried he, after one stupefied moment. 'There is no good on earth; and
sin is but a name. Come, devil! for to thee is this world given," (189). Brown is, in the story, talking
about Faith, his wife, but allegorically, the author is showing us that he has lost his faith in man
because he gives up the world to the devil. It is when Brown hears Faith's voice being swept along
in the crowd that he finally surrenders to the darkness

"Faith kept me back awhile,"(185). Again Brown is talking about his wife, but the implication
is that his good heart and faith in the more spiritually beneficial is what kept him off the path of
destruction for a short while longer. Here, Hawthorne uses the name of Brown’s wife as a symbol
for Brown’s personal faith in goodness. At this point in the story, Brown’s conscious is keeping him
from embracing the evil ways of his companion.

"Faith! Faith! Look up to Heaven, and resist the Wicked One!" (192). It could be interpreted
literally as well as figuratively. The figurative interpretation would include Brown making one last
attempt to save his inner faith and look for something blessed to cling to.
 "Is that any reason why I should quit my dear Faith, and go after her?" (407).

Forest - Since ancient times the near-impenetrable forest in which we get lost has
symbolized the dark, hidden, near-impenetrable world of our unconscious. Goodman Brown's
journey into the forest is best defined as a kind of general, indeterminate allegory, representing
man's irrational drive to leave faith, home, and security temporarily behind, for whatever reason, to
take a chance with one more errand onto the wilder shores of experience (Martin 92).

Author Q.D. Leavis notes that The journey each must take alone, in dread, at night, is the
journey away from home and the community, from conscious, everyday social life, to the
wilderness where the hidden self satisfies, or is forced to realize, its subconscious fears (Leavis
36). The journey into an uncharted and dangerous realm, symbolizing the unconscious; and,
shortly after the journey begins, the meeting with a guide who knows this forbidden and
mysterious territory well.

Goodman Brown may feel, as he says, that the exploration of this inner forest may be a
sin. It is easier by far to follow the accepted path of faith, to walk, as the Church itself often terms
it, in the Light. By walking in the light, that is, by following precisely the tenets of Christian life and
by avoiding all situations where morality does not cleave itself into clear areas of black and white,
one feels safe, clean, and virtuous. By doing this, one also misses out on the depth, the richness,
that a fuller experience of life might offer, but it is unquestionably an easier path.

But because Goodman was unprepared to accept with tolerance and grace the visions he
would receive there, he has been changed for the worse. He was supposed to learn that everyone
is human, and thus should be treated with compassion; he instead learned that everyone is a
sinner, and thus forever after he treats them with contempt. Enlightenment can impart great
wisdom, but only to those whose minds are open vessels to receive it. Goodman Brown's is not.

It seems that the forest stands for Brown’s own mind, in which a secret spot is deeply
buried, a kind of trauma, to which he will have to return. That the forest is haunted and filled with
ambiguity implies that Brown’s mind is haunted, and puzzled and lost. What goes on in Brown’s
mind is just like what happens in the forest. Everything is uncertain. Furthermore, the forest may
equate with temptation and sin. Clearly Brown is uneasy about venturing upon this temptation.

By walking into the forest (which is a symbol for that which is dark and mysterious) with a
man who literally clings to the serpent (an allegorical image for the Devil or evil incarnate)
Goodman is leaving behind his Faith and asking for the truth about who (or what) is good or
evil.

Throughout the story, Brown refers to "Faith," his wife, which when substituted with a
description his beliefs in the known establishment in terms of religion and politics shows his
progression towards realizing the unknown, evil, side of human nature. As he first enters the
forest and is late to meet his traveling companion, he remarks, "Faith kept me back awhile"
(Norton 577). His firm beliefs in the establishment seem to have kept him back from taking a risk
and venturing off on his own. After an encounter of finding out that what he had thought to be a
"pious and exemplary dame" was really practicing witchcraft, he is first exposed to the hidden
evil nature. He exclaims, "What if a wretched old woman do choose to go to the devil, when I
thought she was going to Heaven! Is that any reason why I should quit my dear Faith, and go after
her?" This experience was just not enough to make him change his beliefs although the
aquaintance predicts, "You will think better of this, by-and-by" (Norton 580).

Brown is eventually convinced of mankind’s evil nature at the turning point where he cries,
"My Faith is gone...Come devil! for to thee this world is given" (Norton 581). His perspective has
now changed and he sees all things as evil. This idea that "depending upon one another's hearts"
each person sees life as either all virtuous or all bad is what the figure is referring to here (Norton
584). Upon his return to Salem village at the end of the story, he has a new and quite opposite
outlook on the people and scenes around him and his reactions to this are all based on his new
assumption that all is evil. He has been deceived by a highly programmed society to believe that
humans are virtuous but he comes to realize that when their cover is blown, their evil nature is
seen.

Staff - which has a snake-like appearance, suggests that the character of Brown's
companion is a sly, treacherous person and one that should not be trusted. The staff can be
seen as preying on Brown. This symbol shows the reader the evil that is involved with the devil
character because the serpent is an archetype of the devil, or some sort of evil, which is
prominent in many different cultures. At one moment it is a withered and twisted stick while at
another it changes into a slithering serpent. It is thus symbolically speaking something that has
the potential to harm or to help. The devil offers Brown his staff but Brown rejects. This rejection
symbolizes Brown's reluctance to succumb to the evil in the world.

The devil’s staff, which is encircled by a carved serpent, draws from the biblical symbol of
the serpent as an evil demon. When the devil tells Goodman Brown to use the staff to travel faster,
Goodman Brown takes him up on the offer and, like Eve, is ultimately condemned for his
weakness by losing his innocence. Besides representing Eve’s temptation, the serpent
represents her curiosity, which leads her into that temptation. Goodman Brown’s decision to
come into the forest is motivated by curiosity, as was Eve’s decision to eat the forbidden fruit.

Salem - Salem remains the most notorious colonial town in American History, famous for its
witch trials in 1692 (dramatized brilliantly by Arthur Miller in The Crucible). At the core of the Salem
Witch Trials was the hypocrisy of the town's more prominent citizens and the stupidity and pride of
the town's clergy in encouraging the trials to take place. It would not be a stretch, therefore, to
assume that the "good people" of Salem would have communed with the devil (symbolically
speaking). Hawthorne had a personal connection with the trials, being a descendent of one of
Salem's prominent judges who sentenced several "witches" to death. The symbolism throughout
the story suggests that it takes place during the time known as the "Salem Witch Trials". During
this time many innocent people were burned alive because they were accused of being witches.
Hawthorne uses symbolism throughout the story to show the evil that is in the town of Salem
during this period in history.

Themes:

The most obvious allegorical interpretation of "Young Goodman Brown" involves the loss of
innocence. Brown is stunned when he discovers that even the righteous among him have given in
to temptation at some point. This discovery is a trial of one's faith, a trial that Brown ostensibly
fails.