“Young Goodman Brown” is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne is an
excellent piece that clearly illustrates Sigmund Freud theory of repression
through Young Goodman Brown’s faith in his puritan religion. Brown in his
unconscious mind is, however, challenged by the evils which surround him that
he tries to repress and thus, a battle between good vs. evil surfaces.
Growing up as a dedicated puritan, Young Goodman Brown was raised under strict
religious guidelines that he must obey wholly according to his religion. He
married a lovely woman named Faith within his deeply religious community. Faith
is Young Goodman Browns dear wife, but also serves as a symbol for his
commitment to the puritan religion. In Freud theory of repression, Faith and
his religion serves as his repression in Goodman Browns mind.
The story starts off with Young Goodman Brown heading out to the forest to run
some errands. Faith tries to convince Goodman Brown not to go and stay here
with her. With Faith’s gentle voice she whispers, “prithee put off your journey
until sunrise and sleep in your own bed tonight.” That is just like Brown’s
religious beliefs in his mind trying to stop himself from going into the
forest. “Of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from
thee.” said brown- indicating he must head into the forest tonight but without
any specific reason. The forest is symbolic door to Goodman Browns unconscious
mind where Faith act as the repression, tries to stop Goodman Brown from going
further into his mind. He disregards the repression and went ahead and opened
that door into his unconscious or id.
Inside his mind, he finds all these evil from his thoughts that he had
repressed and locked away all these years cause of his strict religious
beliefs. The evil is represented by a devil he met in his unconscious mind. The
devil holds in his hands a staff that resembles a serpent is similar to the
story of Adam and Eve where the snake leads them away from being the purest of
man and in Young Goodman Brown where the devil with the serpent staff leads
Brown deeper into the forest. All his thoughts that were considered wrong by
his religion were repressed and forgotten. These thoughts which he thought were
forgotten are actually locked deep into the “forest” part of his mind and the
opening of that door will only take a matter of time before the mind can’t take
anymore. Once the door creaks open from the pressure of the thoughts, the
person becomes hysterical unless a method of mental solution provided in Freud
theory is utilized. Proven by Sigmund Freud, hysteria is not at all physical
and is indeed a mental condition.
Young Goodman Brown became hysterical after his visit into his “forest” or id.
He cannot accept that even with his pure good heart, there was such evil in his
unconscious. So with every thought that he was taught wrong by his religion, he
simply just repressed it into his id or unconscious minds. And after he
explored his id, Brown realize he wasn’t as pure as he hoped he would be. He
returned bitter, stern, and distrustful towards his community. He became
anti-social and ignored everything and everyone around him including his wife,
Faith. The 3 solutions to cure hysteria are 1. “Person maybe convinced that it
was wrong in rejecting their wish and accepts it wholly or in part 2. or the
wish maybe directed to unobjectionable aim 3. or rejection of the wish may be
recognized as a justifiable one”. If one of the three methods of solution in
Freud’s theory was used, Young Goodman Brown would still be well.