Faith's Doubleness

Throughout “The Minister’s Black Veil,” I noticed Hawthorne’s double meaning in the word “Faith”. It was used to simultaneously represent Young Goodman Brown’s wife, whose name is Faith, as well as Brown’s Christian faith, which seems to be depleting throughout the story. It becomes evident early on that Brown seems to have a much strong faith in his wife than in his religion. He feels guilty for leaving her to go “on such an errand” as retreating into the woods to sell his soul to the devil, and he vouches to “cling to her skirts and follow her to Heaven” from the moment he returns onward. Clearly, he seems to be much more faithful to his wife than to God. Furthermore, when Goodman Brown meets the ominous man in the woods and he asks why Brown was late, Brown claims that “Faith kept me back awhile.” Faith is used here to mean that his wife kept him back because she was pleading him not to leave, and also his own faith held him back because he has been struggling with whether or not he is fully ready to go through with this “errand”. Further along in the short story, Brown sees Goody Cloyse, a member of the Salem community whom he always considered to be very devout in her faith. Upon seeing her Brown’s mental turmoil over his decision to go into the woods intensifies. He wonders “is that any reason why I should quit my dear Faith, and go after her?” Seeing Goody Cloyse on her way to the induction ceremony leads Brown to question whether he too should continue on towards the ceremony and give up his religious faith, as well as proceed to the ceremony and give up his loving wife, Faith. After his meeting with Goody Cloyse, Brown starts to rationalize that he should turn back towards his home and see the minister immediately the next day. He imagines how calm his sleep would be “in the arms of Faith!”, meaning in the arms of his wife as well as in the comfort of knowing that he remained true to his Christian beliefs.

It is not until Brown catches a glimpse of a pink ribbon (Faith’s choice of hair accessory) floating down from the sky and hears a woman’s scream that he switches over to the dark side of the devil. He grabs the ribbon and shrieks “my Faith is gone” implying that his wife has been taken by these demons of the forest and that his faith in God is not completely gone since his wife is no longer their to be his foundation. Brown arrives at the ceremony and sees familiar faces of the Salem community. His fist question in “where is Faith?” Where is his wife and where is the faith that all these people seemed to have possessed to staunchly. During the induction, the inductees stepped forward towards the altar and “the wretched man held his Faith.” The devil now has both Brown’s faith and his wife under his control.

The next morning after the ceremony in the woods, Goodman Brown sees his wife as he is walking through Salem. He cannot return her excitement to see him. He has now lost all faith that he had in his wife, his marriage, and Christianity. His faithfulness to his wife, which before had been so strong, is now lost, and that night as he awakes in the middle of the night “he shrank from the bosom of Faith.” I found Hawthorne’s parallel between Goodman Brown’s wife Faith and his religious faith to be very interesting. It’s fascinating to see the progression of Brown’s struggle with his faith in both throughout “Young Goodman Brown.”