Allegory and symbolism are some of the most prevalent literary elements in Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”. Like many writers who advocate for philosophical, moral as well as religious issues, Hawthorne uses allegory and symbolism prevalently due to a number of reasons. Concerning this, one of the reasons both symbolism and allegory are used is to convey messages to the “many”, thus in sensible imagery that is easy to understand, while at the same time conveying a somewhat different message to the few that are philosophically minded (Sweeney, 2013). Symbolism and allegory are also used because they are heuristic devices that generally make difficult as well as abstract messages easier to understand, on this view, both symbolic and allegorical forms can be easily stripped without changing the text’s meaning. Other writers use both allegory and symbolism as a result of either fear of persecution or misinterpretation, hence, these devices are used to hide or rather conceal their true views; thus behind the façade of symbolism and allegory in order to protect not only themselves but also their message (Sweeney, 2013). In addition, symbolism and allegory are also used to express emotions, state of mind, as well as mystical ideas or messages when they cannot be easily expressed in literal language of both language and logic.
In “Young Goodman Brown”, Hawthorne uses symbolism as a literary device to convey her message through various themes, examples of symbolism in the story include Faith and her pink ribbons. Faith and her pink ribbons; a color that symbolizes innocence is used by the author as a symbol of innocence, and pure live, when the ribbons waft through the air, they are used as a symbol of Brown’s loss of innocence as well as his disillusion, it also symbolizes his fall from grace which the devil had. On the other hand, Goodman Brown’s wife, Faith is symbolic of Brown’s own faith, moreover, other symbols include both the night and the forest which are symbolic of the darkness that generally lies in the heart of man, and therefore, it cats as an innate predilection of evil that lies in the nature of man (Lynch). Other major symbols include the forest which are an obvious symbol of the devils acode, it can also be constructed further as journey into both darkness and sin. Goody Cloyse as well as Deacon Goodkin; a witch and participant in the Salem witchcraft trials both symbolize the sanctimonious Puritan hypocrites who to a great extent are more guilty of sin as compared to those they accuse. Another major symbol in the story is the staff; heavily drawn from the biblical symbol of the snake, it symbolizes an evil demon that leads Goodman Brown towards the path of evil (Lynch).
Works Cited
Sweeney, E. “Literary Forms of Medieval Philosophy”. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/medieval-literary/
Lynch, J. “Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne”. (n.d.). http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/younggoodmanbrown.html
