LITR 4232: American Renaissance

University of Houston-Clear Lake, spring 2002

Student Presentation Summary

Thursday, 21 March: Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown,” 2186-2195.

Reader: Diane Tincher

Discussion notes recorder: Kate Payne

 The objective that I see as pertaining to this story the most is objective 2, which talks about romantic literature and the gothic and the sublime.  I see the character of Young Goodman Brown as being somewhat delusional in that he does not seem to be too much in touch with reality.  He has romanticized or idealized his wife’s goodness of character:  “Well; she’s a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night, I’ll cling to her skirts and follow her to Heaven”  (2187).  Young Goodman Brown’s society was Puritan, and by Christian principles it is Christ who we are supposed to put our faith in to get us into heaven because he is the only sinless one.  It then struck me that Faith’s ribbons are pink not white, because white is the color most often linked to purity and innocence.  Therefore, Young Goodman Brown, from the very beginning, is a man without faith.  Whether the witch’s meeting was all a dream or not is irrelevant, because everyone has good and evil qualities and Young Goodman Brown is not willing to accept the reality of man and woman’s true nature.

            There is much in the way of the gothic and the sublime in this story.  Almost immediately we get a description of the haunted forest reminiscent of Washington Irving’s description of the haunted forest in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”: 

He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind.  It was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveller knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that, with lonely footsteps he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude.  (2187)

Also, on page 2191 is a good example of the gothic with the shades of pink and of Young Goodman Brown’s gothic state of mind:

The cry of grief, rage, and terror, was yet piercing the night, when the unhappy husband held his breath for a response.  There was a scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fading into far-off laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving the clear and silent sky about Goodman Brown.  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.  “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.”  (2191)

I say that this passage is a depiction of Young Goodman Brown’s gothic state of mind because it seems that he only sees things in black and white or light and dark.  This is because it seems like he believes a person is either all good or all bad and he doesn’t allow for shades of gray or in this instance pink maybe.  The description of the witch’s meeting is both gothic and sublime: 

Thus he sped the demoniac on his course, until quivering among the trees, he saw a red light before him, as when the felled trunks and branches of a clearing have been set on fire, and throw up their lurid blaze against the sky at the hour of midnight.  . . .  At one extremity of an open space, hemmed in by the dark wall of the forest, arose a rock, bearing some rude natural resemblance either to an altar or a pulpit and surrounded by four blazing pines, their tops aflame, their stems untouched, like candles at and evening meeting.  The mass of foliage, that had overgrown the summit of the rock, was all on fire, blazing high, into the night, and fitfully illuminating the whole field.  Each pendent twig and leafy festoon was in a blaze.  As the red light arose and fell, a numerous congregation alternately shone forth, then disappeared in shadow, and again grew, as it were, out of the darkness, peopling the heart of the solitary woods at once.  (2192)

If gothic is light and dark with shades of color mixed in with them, then a fire burning at night can be gothic.  The image of the four pine trees burning is very awe-inspiring, beautiful and scary—so I thought of that image as being sublime.  The part where the red light is rising and falling and the congregation is alternately seen and then disappearing into the shadow as the light falls also seems quite gothic to me.

My questions are: 

How is Hawthorne’s take on the gothic and romantic literature different from all the other authors we have read this semester?

Do you see any other instances of romanticizing and other aspects of the gothic and sublime in this story?

Do you think that what Young Goodman Brown experienced in the woods was all just a dream or was it real?

Discussion:

Student:  It’s a dream, he sees it one way before the dream-wife and church members are perfect, then after the dream they aren’t perfect anymore.

Angie:  It’s a mental fantasy of what he wants people to be.

Student:  The action is so fast, dream-like, all these people in succession, whispering, surreal, this can't be happening.  Like old Karen Black movies.

Brenda:  When he was in the forest what came to mind was Moses when he got the Ten Commandments, he was told about what was going to happen.  Brown was told what was going to happen.

Val:  His mother-page 2193-I dream about my dad, who is gone, maybe it’s a dream, his mother is last to him, but there for him at the witch’s meeting.

Student:  A spiritual journey, a recognition of this, like Hooper, realization, they can change lives.

Student:  Hooper becomes more faithful, Brown loses his faith.

Val:  He gained faith.

Student:  He grumbled when they prayed.

Diane:  He lost his delusion that people are all good, now they are all bad.  He didn’t really know these people, he had idealized notions of them and he lost them that night.

Dr. White:  Too much praise can dehumanize people.  He doesn’t know Faith—people aren’t just all good or all bad.  He can’t accept his own sinfulness.

Val:  Hawthorne introduces her as Faith-metaphor-he loses Faith.

Student:  “Poor little Faith”  (2186).  This is ironic because it is more like “Ye of little faith,” because Brown didn’t have much faith to begin with.

Dr. White:  Is it a dream?  Is gothic in here (mind) ore out there (physical)?  The reality and dream are interchangeable.  If a dream he might have fallen asleep on page 2190:  “I’m not going any further.” Brown sits to rest, he thought of sleep, and then the actions picks up, it becomes dream-like, but Hawthorne does not say one way or the other for sure.

Terry:  If he’s asleep why did he go to the woods at all?

Sheri:  Why was he going?  The whole thing is a parable or a dream from the beginning.

Terry:  Everyone has evil, he couldn’t handle it.

Brenda:  Like Hooper with the veil, Brown is trying to search for evil.

Angie: Is he searching for evil?

Student:  He’s searching for himself.

Sheri:  He finds the answer and can’t deal with it.