Essays: Young Goodman Brown

Young Goodman Brown: Losing Faith to the Father of Lies
Julia Koslowsky
21 April 2015

    Oscar Wilde once wrote, “We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell” (The Duchess of Padua). By this epigram he illustrates that every man is his own worst enemy, whether we realize that fact or not. Among the many types of characters in literature, every so often, we come across a protagonist who loses this struggle against his inner demons: he falls then wallows in his tragedy rather than choosing to overcome it. In the short story “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the titular character succumbs to the Devil’s trickery and lies. Though he believes he can flirt with evil and remain unchanged, Brown’s night in the forest transforms him and affects the people around him more than he realizes.