YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN PSYCHOLOGICAL READING

Nathaniel Hawthorne's story Yound Goodman Brown describes the maturation of

its male protagonist, young Brown. The conflict that the young man suffers during
his mysterious journey in the woods is shown to be internal through a number of
details that are projections of his unconscious. Brown's journey is more than a
physical one, it is a psychological one as well. For Goodman Brown, the descent
into the unconscious (the night in the forest) presents a conflict between the
superego (the highly regulated life in Salem) and the Id (the wild, unrestrained
passions of the people in the forest).
This young man leaves the village of Salem to go into the forest. The village is a
place of light and order, both social and spiritual order. Brown leaves his wife,
Faith, behind in the town at sunset, and returns to her in the morning. It is in the
forest, a place of darkness and unknown terrors, that Brown meets the devil. On
one level, the village may be equated with consciousness, the forset with the
dark recesses of the unconscious. But, more precisely, the village, as a place of
social and moral order (and inhibition) is analoguous to Freud's superego; the
forest, as a place of wild, untamed passions and terrors, has the attributes of the
Freudian Id.
The Id is personified in the person of Brown's fellow traveler (presumably the
Devil), who appears to Brown immediately after he thinks of him. The narrator
suggest the embodiment of Brown's Id in the figure by describing him as bearing
a considerable resemblance to the young man. Even before he meets the old
man in the forest, Brown recognizes that he is challenging acceptable behaviour
by leaving the highly regulated life in Salem.
As he moves on through the forset, Brown encounters other figures, the most
respected of his moral tutors: Old Goodly Cloyse, Deacon Gookin, and at last
even Faith herself, whose pink ribbon reflects the ambiguity that Brown is unable
to resolve for pink is the mixture of white (purity) and red (passion). He is
horrified by the fact that all the people he has respected for so long have turned
to be the Devil's worshippers attending the devil's ceremony in the forest, even
his wife. Brown has been required to acknowledge evil in himself and others,
including his wife, so that he can recognize goodness, but he fails the test.
As mediator between these opposing forces, Brown resembles the poor ego,
which tries to effect a healthy balance and is shattered because it is unable to do
so. The devil that Brown meets in the forset can be seen as Brown's own alter
ego, the dramatic projection of Brown's psyche, just as Faith is the projection of
another part of his psyche. Lacking a viable ego of his own, he turns to his wife
for help. Unfortunately, she wears pink ribbons, a mixture of white (purity) and
red (passion), which indicates the ambiguity of goodness and Brown's clouded
belief in the possibility of goodness throughout the remainder of his life. Thus
Brown capitulates to the wild evil in his heart and becomes the chief horror of the
scene.