This story by Nathaniel Hawthorne called, “Young Goodman Brown” is a faithful religious story that really test his faith. The story has major characters that have meaning to this story. Even some characters are symbolizing faith, the devil, and followers of the devil. The devil plays mind tricks on Young Goodman Brown to steal his faith away, Young Goodman starts to believe what the devil is saying about where the cruelest of evil resides in the hearts of all man. Sure there is evil in man’s hearts but the roots of all evil is the devil so the devil is wrong, The devil statement is false because the devil uses the most desirable trait in that person‘s heart against them and that he turns people closes to him into something they are not.
The first reason why I disagree with the devils statement is that he uses what we want the most in our hearts against us.
In this story he used Goodman’s temptation with the mysterious woods so he succumbed to him because of his curiosity and the weakness of his faith as an advantage, Hawthorne used this story to mostly resemble the story of Adam and Eve in the Bible.
He compares Eve to Goodman Brown by trickery with the use of deception. As Eve was trick by the devil to eat of the apple that God said not to eat off the Tree of Knowledge, This story brings Brown to the mysterious woods where he is losing his faith.
Brown’s faith was next to everything he stood for, the devil likes to play trick to deceive our minds to believe in something that can never be real unless he wins. The second reason why I believe the devil statement is false is because he tries to change the people around you, The devil messes with minds by making you believe that your friends are your enemies and that he is the only thing to turn to. Goodman only saw what the devil wanted him to see and hear. All the people he saw was just a trick by the devil to make him believe that his [own folk were followers for him.
Then what took the icing is that his wife was seen as a follower as well but his wife was named faith. His wife symbolizes his faith in God, once he saw her in the mysterious woods that the devil made up. How she was following him with all the other town folks, he kind of lost it when that happen. He started to question his faith doubtful admitting that the devil won his faith. It doesn’t matter how big or small, young or old your faith may be the devil will try to get a hold of it. He will not stop until you become like Brown and lose his faith completely. The devil statement is false because the devil uses the most desirable trait in that person’s heart against them and that he turns people closes to him into something they are not. He is a powerful creature of you allow him to take your faith. The root of all evil in man’s hearts is the devil and his wicked ways. Also how he compares Eve to Brown was to show how the devil in this story really wanted to steal Goodman’s faith.
Devil Statement in Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne. (2023, May 14). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/devil-statement-in-young-goodman-brown-by-nathaniel-hawthorne/