“My faith is gone!” cried he (Goodman Brown), 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.”
Comment on this passage from Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”.
A.Goodman Brown utters this cry when he finds his wife Faith, together with lots of prominent people of the village and the church, attending a witches' Sabbath in the woods.
B.His cry shows his great surprise and disillusionme. Thereafter, he becomes distrustful and doubtful. He lives a dismal and gloomy life because he is never able to believe in goodness or piety again. Here the author makes a pun of the word "faith". Goodman Brown loses not only his faith in religion and life, but also his faith in his wife, for his wife's name is Faith.
C. From this story, we also can see that Hawthorne is great allegorist and a master of symbolism. The story itself is an allegory and is full of symbols such as the forest, the night, the snake, and the pink ribbon.
