Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown: Three Literary Interpretations |
Posted: March 24, 2020 |
Hawthorne’s intentions in his fictional stories are often unclear. According to Nina Baym, editor of The Norton Anthology of American Literature, “Withholding interpretation—or offering multiple and conflicting interpretations—Hawthorne not only makes readers do their own interpretive work but also shows how interpretation is often a form of self-expression” (1272). https://essayfreelancewriters.com/blog/how-to-write-an-analytical-essay/ is particularly valid when readers examine “Young Goodman Brown,” a short story written in 1835 that is set in Puritan New England. This story, due to Hawthorne’s preference for individual interpretation, lends itself to multiple critical approaches, including but not limited to Historical, Gender Studies, Mythological, and Formalist critiques. These examinations can be synthesized to allow for a more thorough understanding of the text. James C. Keil, author of “Hawthorne’s ‘Young Goodman Brown’: Early Nineteenth-Century and Puritan Constructions of Gender,” takes an analytical approach that combines Historical and Gender Studies criticisms. He examines how gender constructions in society changed between the Puritan New England setting in the story and the Nineteenth-Century world in which Hawthorne actually lived. This article was generated with the help of Essay Freelance Writers! He then applies that knowledge to the characters in the story to understand why the plot unfolds the way that it does. Keil begins with an explanation of gender relations during the two periods. He writes, “‘Young Goodman Brown’ takes as part of its context fundamental changes in gender and gender relations in the growing middle-class world of New England. One aspect of these changes in gender and sexuality with which the story surely is concerned is the nineteenth-century ideology of separate spheres” (Keil 35). In the nineteenth century, there was a push toward a society with more distinct gender roles than existed in Puritan society. He maintains that people of the 1800s preferred men to be the financial providers for the family and women to be the laborers within the home. According to Keil, most of the tension found in “Young Goodman Brown,” therefore, has its roots in the violation of the “separate spheres” and other gender constructions of the nineteenth-century. Keil states that “historians have come to understand that the clear boundaries between male/female, public/private, and work/home were blurred” (36). He explains that because the 1830s constituted a turning-point for the blurring of these barriers, “Young Goodman Brown” reflects the confusion caused by the inconsistency of the cultural ideology of the time and the actual behavior of the people within the culture (Keil 36). Keil references the scene in which Faith and Goodman Brown kiss in the doorway of their home, which is symbolic of the “threshold” between the public and private spheres (37). Further confusion between Puritan gender beliefs and nineteenth-century roles is evident in the character of Faith. Brown’s concern about Faith straying from goodness at the end of the story stems from the Puritan belief that women are inherently sexual, and men should be careful of a woman’s tendency to stray (Keil 39). The story also contains many elements of the belief systems of Hawthorne’s lifetime. For example, Faith is portrayed as young and pure, a reflection of the nineteenth-century tendency to portray women as childlike. Keil writes, “Such characterizations of femininity contrast quite specifically with Puritan constructions of womanhood, which were based on Eve’s seduction by the devil and her deception of Adam in the Garden of Eden” (40). According to Keil, the depiction of women in Hawthorne’s story supports contrasting Puritan and nineteenth-century beliefs. Having established the historical backdrop to the story’s gender constructions, Keil moves on to apply these ideas more directly to the events of the story. He maintains that the forest is a combination of the public and private spheres of the nineteenth century. Although Brown feels lonely within its confines, he encounters many people from his public life while there (Keil 44). The story is the result of tensions within the structure of the nineteenth-century family, and therefore, the private sphere. Because the father spends most of his time in the public sphere, and the children are raised primarily by their mother, it is hard for Brown to move from childhood to adulthood. Young Boys’ time with their father is “limited to a few hours a day” (46). Therefore, once boys move into adulthood and are forced to leave their mothers to be married and support their wives by working, they are often anxious due to the lack of previous exposure to both their role as fathers and their role within public sphere. Although Keil’s approaches are effective ways to examine Hawthorne’s story, D. M. McKeithan utilizes a mythological approach in his work, “Hawthorne’s ‘Young Goodman Brown’: An Interpretation.” Whereas Keil attribute’s Brown’s sadness to anxiety about gender relations, McKeithan writes that Brown ends up cynical and unhappy because of the effects of a sin that he committed (94). He uses the universal themes of sin and temptation to make sense of the story. McKeithan proposes that Goodman Brown is an average person who has been indulging in sin, and therefore, has not been loyal to his Faith. Faith is literally his wife, he argues, but also symbolically his religion.
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