40 Fun Facts About Young Goodman Brown

In Young Goodman Brown, the word 'Goodman' is not a first name but which kind of Puritan-era label?

A polite title, Goodman was used where 'Mister' would be today, though for a man of slightly lower social rank.

Which horror novelist wrote 'The Man in the Black Suit' as a homage to Young Goodman Brown?

Stephen King has called Hawthorne's tale one of the ten best stories written by an American. His homage won an O. Henry Award.

What role did an ancestor of Nathaniel Hawthorne play in the Salem witch trials of 1692?

A judge, and unlike fellow judge Samuel Sewall he is not known to have repented, which left his novelist descendant deeply ashamed.

What did Nathaniel Hawthorne add to his surname, probably to set himself apart from his forebears?

The letter w turned Hathorne into Hawthorne in his early twenties, soon after college, separating him from two notoriously harsh ancestors.

What does the narrator of Young Goodman Brown suggest the witch meeting in the forest may have been?

Only a dream, perhaps: the narrator asks whether Brown simply fell asleep in the forest, then adds 'Be it so if you will' and never settles it.

What flutters down from the night sky and convinces Goodman Brown that his wife Faith is lost?

A pink ribbon like those on Faith's cap catches on a branch after voices pass overhead. 'My Faith is gone!' he cries, and he dares the devil to come.

In Young Goodman Brown, what creature does the older traveller's remarkable walking staff resemble?

A black snake, so finely carved that it seems to twist and wriggle like a living thing, is an early clue that the stranger is the devil.

Which 1850 novel by the author of Young Goodman Brown is also set in Puritan New England?

The Scarlet Letter opens with a preface about Hawthorne's three years in the Salem Custom House, which annoyed the local politicians it described.

How does Goodman Brown respond when Faith joyfully runs to meet him in the street next morning?

He passes without a greeting, looking 'sternly and sadly into her face', though Faith had skipped along the street and almost kissed him.

What does the old woman on the forest path in Young Goodman Brown say has been stolen from her?

Her broomstick has 'strangely disappeared', she tells the devil, so she must go to the gathering on foot, and she blames a fellow witch.

Like Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, Young Goodman Brown is usually read as which kind of story?

An allegory gives its characters names that stand for ideas, such as Faith, and this one is read as a story about finding evil in everyone.

Which pious old woman, met on the forest path in Young Goodman Brown, taught the hero his catechism?

Goody Cloyse shares her name with Sarah Cloyce, a real woman accused at Salem in 1692 who survived, though two of her sisters were executed.

At what time of day does Goodman Brown kiss Faith goodbye and set out from Salem village?

At sunset he leaves, promising to be back by sunrise, so the whole errand belongs to the hours of darkness.

What excuse does Goodman Brown give the devil for arriving late to their meeting in the forest?

His wife delayed him: 'Faith kept me back a while,' he says, a line that also admits his religious faith almost stopped him from going.

What does Goodman Brown cry out for Faith to do just before the witch meeting vanishes?

Look up to heaven 'and resist the wicked one', he shouts, and at once he is alone in the calm night, never learning whether she obeyed.

What do the mourners in Young Goodman Brown leave off the hero's tombstone in the final sentence?

A hopeful verse is missing 'for his dying hour was gloom', even though he lived long and was followed to the grave by children and grandchildren.

In Young Goodman Brown, which Christian rite does the devil prepare to mimic at the hollowed rock?

Baptism is the rite: he dips his hand in a natural basin that may hold water, blood or liquid flame, ready to mark the converts' foreheads.

Which 1846 Hawthorne collection first printed Young Goodman Brown under its author's name?

Mosses from an Old Manse took its name from the Concord house where Hawthorne and his wife spent the first three years of their marriage.

Whom does Goodman Brown call a 'wizard' on overhearing his morning prayers through an open window?

Deacon Gookin is the 'wizard': the night before, Brown heard the same voice riding to the witch meeting, anxious not to miss it.

In which conflict does the devil claim he helped Goodman Brown's father burn an Indian village?

King Philip's War of 1675–1678 pitted the New England colonies against a coalition of Algonquian tribes, placing Brown's father among its Puritan soldiers.

According to the devil, whom did Goodman Brown's constable forebear lash through Salem's streets?

A Quaker woman was the victim, a detail from Hawthorne's own family history: his first American ancestor had Quakers whipped in the streets of Salem.

Which town does the devil say he left only fifteen minutes before meeting Goodman Brown near Salem?

Boston's Old South clock was striking as he came through, he says, a first hint that the soberly dressed stranger travels by unnatural means.

What word does Young Goodman Brown use for the Native priests who join the witch meeting?

Powwows are said to know 'almost as much deviltry as the best of us', as one rider puts it on his way to the gathering.

Which trees blaze like candles around the altar rock in Young Goodman Brown, their trunks untouched?

Pines, four of them, burn 'like candles at an evening meeting', turning the clearing into a dark copy of a church service.

Which figure in the smoke seems to throw out a hand to warn Goodman Brown back from the altar?

His mother, he thinks, is the woman 'with dim features of despair', while the shape of his dead father beckons him forward.

Which real woman hanged at Salem in 1692 helps lead Faith to the altar in Young Goodman Brown?

Martha Carrier 'had received the devil's promise to be queen of hell', the narrator says, repeating a charge her accusers made in 1692.

When the witch meeting vanishes, what does a once-burning twig sprinkle on Goodman Brown's cheek?

Cold dew falls from a twig that had seemed all on fire, and the altar rock feels chill and damp, as if no flame had ever touched it.

What does Goodman Brown do on seeing his old catechism teacher instructing a little girl?

Snatches the child away 'as from the grasp of the fiend himself', although the girl had only brought the old woman a pint of morning milk.

The old woman on the path says the devil looks the very image of which relative of Goodman Brown?

His grandfather was her 'old gossip', she says, which fits the devil's boast that he has long been well acquainted with the Brown family.

Which fellow novelist called Young Goodman Brown 'deep as Dante' in an essay on Hawthorne's tales?

Herman Melville made the comparison in 1850, in an essay printed under a pseudonym less than two weeks after the two writers first met at a picnic.

What does Faith beg Goodman Brown to do as he sets out, 'of all nights in the year'?

Sleep in his own bed, she pleads, because she is 'afeard of herself sometimes' when alone, but he insists the journey cannot wait.

Salem Village, where Young Goodman Brown is set, is known today as which Massachusetts town?

Danvers received its present name in 1752; the witchcraft accusations of 1692 began there, in the household of the village minister.

The hero of Young Goodman Brown despairs that there is 'no good on earth' and sin is 'but' what?

A name is all sin amounts to, he cries, before summoning the devil with the words 'for to thee is this world given'.

At the altar in Young Goodman Brown, the devil tells the converts that evil must be their only what?

Happiness is the word, in a speech that also declares evil 'the nature of mankind' and welcomes the pair to 'the communion of your race'.

In Young Goodman Brown, the dark figure at the altar looks like which kind of New Englander?

A clergyman, or in the narrator's words 'some grave divine of the New England churches', so the devil's sermon resembles an ordinary Sabbath service.

In later years, what does Goodman Brown dread will crash down on the minister and his hearers?

The roof, he fears, will 'thunder down' on a preacher he now thinks a blasphemer, because every sermon sounds like hypocrisy to him.

From what do the voices of Salem villagers seem to come as Goodman Brown lifts his hands to pray?

A black cloud hurries across the stars though no wind is stirring, and from it he seems to hear townspeople both pious and ungodly.

How does the older Goodman Brown behave when his family kneels for prayers at morning or evening?

He scowls and mutters to himself, gazes sternly at his wife and turns away, and often shrinks from her on waking at midnight.

The narrator of Young Goodman Brown hints the devil's staff was once lent to the magi of which land?

Egypt's magi had it on loan, the narrator jokes, just before the staff and the old woman both vanish from the forest path.

Which familiar sound from Sunday worship does Goodman Brown hear rising from the witch meeting?

A hymn tune he knows from the village choir rolls through the trees, but its chorus is taken up by the sounds of the wilderness.