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The background of the story is Salem witch trials, at which Hawthorne's Great-grandfather John Hathorne was a judge, guilt over which inspired the author to change his family’s name, adding a “w” in his early twenties, shortly after graduating from college. In his writings Hawthorne questioned established thought—most specifically New England Puritanism and contemporary Transcendentalism. In Young Goodman Brown, as many of his other works, he used ambiguity and symbolism.
So far scholars at home and abroad have studied more novels than short stories of Hawthorne. Young Goodman Brown has gained great popularity among readers. There are many mysterious and obscure imagery, so readers have different understanding of the story. Hawthorne’s view on human nature reflected in the story is always the central issue in critics circle. Selection of this subject is aimed to find Hawthorne’s view on human nature through analyzing obscure names with symbolic meanings, mysterious and obscure settings and development of the plot. There is quite a lot of experts who have researched Hawthorne's works. Sun li-ang points out in his thesis-- “Metaphor of Title and Color--An Exposition of Symbol in Young Goodman Brown” that the title，the protagonists’ names and the color of pink, black and red have abundant symbolic meanings, and the writer’s idea can be embodied which is excavation of evil embed in human's soul and hope of ‘Goodness’ and is the foundation of the truth and beauty. Also, Jiao lidong claims in his “The Symbolism Behind Young Goodman Brown” that the symbolism throughout Young Goodman Brown is mainly spiritual in nature, and the best presentation of this is shown as Brown loses his faith and follows the devil on the evil path.
In the story Young Goodman Brown, Hawthorne tells a story about a young man called Brown who realizes evil exists allover the world after a journey in the forest.
It begins at dusk in Salem Village, Massachusetts, as young Goodman Brown leaves Faith, his newly wife, for some unknown errand in the forest. Faith begs her husband to stay with her, but he insists that the journey must be completed during the sunset and sunrise that night. In the forest he meets an old man, dressed in a similar manner and bearing a physical resemblance to him. The man carries a black serpent-shaped staff. They encounter Goody Cloyse, an older woman who is the spiritual guide of Brown. She complains about the long way to the party and accepts the snake staff and flies away to her destination. Other townspeople appear at the woods that night, traveling in the same direction as Goodman Brown. When he hears his wife’s voice in the trees, he called out but is not answered. He then seems to fly through the forest, using a maple staff the stranger made for him, arriving at a party at midnight, and finally finding all the townspeople assembled there. At the party Brown also meets Faith. They are the only two of the townspeople not yet initiated. Goodman Brown calls to heaven to resist and instantly the scene vanishes. Arriving back at his home in Salem the next morning, Goodman Brown is uncertain whether the previous night’s events are real or just a dream, but he is deeply shaken, and his belief he lives in a Christian community is distorted. He loses his faith in his wife, along with all of humanity. The story concluded: “And when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave... they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom.”(154)
This thesis aims to reveal symbolism used in Young Goodman Brown and the symbolic meanѩng through analyzing the implication of the hero, heroine, the time, place of the story as well as the theme of the story. Chapter one to four give clear analysis of symbolism in names, objects, settings and themes.Through analyzing symbolism in it, we can know more about Hawthorne’s view on human nature.