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   mwestwood Teacher
   Community / Jr. College

   eNotes Editor

   For one thing, students can learn the profundity of Shakespeare's Hamlet: " There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so"  Or Shelley's words: "All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil."

   This Gothic tale by Hawthorne has ambiguity at its core:  the reader cannot be certain whether Goodman Brown has gone into the forest or simply entered the chambers of his own heart and the darkness that dwells within it. This inner darkness of Brown's, his flawed part, may prevent him from perceiving goodness in his wife and others.  In fact, some interpretations perceive the character of the older man as a representation of Goodman Brown himself after he has lost faith in the goodness of his wife and others.  The cane that becomes a snake represents the skewering of the truth by Goodman Brown, the "enslaved spirit that serves evil" by "thinking it so." 

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   Posted by mwestwood on Wednesday February 4, 2009 at 6:55 PM