What causes Brown to exclaim, "My faith is gone!"?
In the forest one night, Goodman Brown witnesses a Black Mass, full of individuals worshipping the Devil. He is surprised to see pious townspeople in attendance, including Goody Cloyse, his catechism teacher when he was a child.
He holds on to his own faith and stands strong against the Devil, however, until he realizes his wife Faith is one of the attenders at this Satanic Mass. She appears to be asking the Devil to grant her some dark favor, with encouragement from the others. When Goodman Brown sees her pink hair ribbon floating down from a tree branch, he cries out: "My Faith is gone!" This statement is a double entendre: it has a dual meaning. It means both that his wife Faith has gone over to the Devil and that his own faith in God is gone because of witnessing this fact. Faith is not the pure woman he thought she was.
Goodman Brown could bear anyone else worshipping the Devil, disturbing as that was to him, but the idea of his own dear wife doing so throws him into despair.
When he wakes the next morning in the forest, although he is unsure whether he dreamed of the Black Mass or not, he is forever changed, because he can't look at his wife or neighbors in the same way again.
What causes Brown to exclaim, "My faith is gone!"?
This exclamation has a double meaning. This is because "Faith" is Brown's wife and she is also a symbol for religious faith. After his experience in the forest, Brown does not know if his wife finally resisted the devil or became part of the devil's cult. Because he is so unsure about the outcome of the evening, he exclaims "My Faith is gone.---meaning his wife has made a pact with the devil and/or his religious faith is gone. Unfortunately, Brown is never able to see that people have both good and bad sides. Since he cannot accept the dual nature of man, he sees everyone's dark side. Sadly, he can never enjoy life or people again.
When does Goodman Brown lose his faith?
Brown abandons his faith when he is in the woods and hears a faint cry from Faith. Then he sees a pink ribbon descend and catch on a branch in front of him. He cries \"My Faith is gone . . . There is no good on earth, and sin is but a name. Come, devil! for to thee is this world given.\"
Now I don\'t know that Brown abandons all his faith, for later on he tells faith to \"Look up to Heaven, and resist the Wicked One\" at which point the black mass disappears and he is alone in the woods.
Brown might have lost his faith in his fellow Puritans and their seemingly pious lives, but he might have held true to his faith in religion, which might explain why the black mass disappears. He can never come to grips, though, with this and dies a bitter old man.
When does Goodman Brown lose his faith?
This is a great question because it gets to the heart of the ambiguity of the story. When Brown leaves to go into the forest, he says "Poor little Faith!....What a wretch am I to leave her on such an errand." Because this is an allegory, where concrete items represent abstract concepts, we need to understand his farewell to his wife here also as his farewell to his "faith" in either God, the goodness of humanity, or other variations of faith that enable us to love each other in a community. As for despair, some aspects of Christianity (and puritanism is one) teach that despair is the greatest sin because it forsakes God, putting one's own sadness above his wisdom. I would argue, too, that Brown's despair signifies his loss of faith, which is the final comment Hawthorne makes about human nature and evil in this story.
When does Goodman Brown lose his faith?
Well, we have a problem, because I don't think he does abandon all faith at any point. He comes close, and he definitely feels despair, but I don't think he abandons all faith.
Here's why. This is his next to last speech in the story:
"Faith! Faith!" cried the husband, "look up to heaven, and resist the wicked one."
That's the moment of climax, and that's not a loss of faith.
If he does lose it, it would be after that. The last paragraphs show him shrinking from Faith (his wife, but also his faith), and so I'd say he feels doubt his entire life after his vision.
What causes Goodman Brown to exclaim, "My Faith is gone!"?
Throughout his time in the woods, Goodman Brown undergoes a gradual spiritual disintegration. The sight of Goody Cloyse speaking in a genial manner to the devil represents the first major blow to Goodman's faith in God and humanity. However, he sees other people from his town in the woods, both the pious and the disreputable, and this disturbs him greatly, causing his resolve to weaken.
The final blow against Goodman's faith is the sight of his wife among the devil's company. Ironically, her name is Faith. Her name is fitting because she represents all that is good, true, and beautiful to her husband, who sees her as a pure angel without any kind of dark side. She wears a cap with pink ribbons, further emphasizing her innocence. However, when Goodman sees her in the forest, her cap flutters to the ground, representing a fall from grace. At the sight of the falling cap, Goodman cries out that his faith is gone. In this instance, the word "faith" takes on a double meaning, referring to both his wife and his own personal faith. If even his wife can be taken in by evil, then Goodman sees all of humanity as utterly lost and undeserving of his trust.
What is Goodman Brown's faith in "Young Goodman Brown" and why do readers say he lost it?
Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" is a criticism of Calvinism as the sanctimonious, but ingenuous, Goodman loses his faith in the precepts of Puritanism through his discovery that Goody Cloyse, Deacon Godkin, and the "good old minister" are in league with Satan. Indeed, his Calvinistic Puritanism is diabolical, rather than divine.
Initially, the naive Goodman Brown is convinced that he is secure in his faith in a Calvinistically defined God. He ventures forth away from home on business for just one night after which he vows to "cling to [Faith's ] skirts" and follow her to heaven. However, he is intercepted and deceived by his "fellow-traveler" whose staff resembles a serpent. This traveler claims to be well acquainted with relatives of Brown's and others in the Puritan community:
"I have a very general acquaintance here in New England. The deacons of many a church have drunk the communion wine with me...."
Then, Goodman witnesses Goody Cloyse and Deacon Godkin speaking of how they will take into communion a nice young man. Moreover, as he discovers his wife Faith at the black mass, Goodman becomes completely disillusioned and cries out to her. He hears "the figure" say,
"Evil is the nature of humankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of your race."
Young Goodman Brown's faith in Puritanism is an illusion that Puritanism protects him from the evil of the world. Exposed to the extent of this Calvinistic "depravity of man," Goodman suffers from "misery unutterable" as he learns Puritanism's terrible significance. Like Adam, Goodman Brown suffers a great fall from innocence.
How does Goodman Brown lose his innocence?
Young Goodman Brown loses his innocence when he sees the people he has always considered good, including his wife, worshiping the devil. Brown is a faithful Puritan whose initial trust that others are also faithful and pure makes him an innocent man. In this story, he sets out into the woods with the devil and learns that many of his family members and many of the Puritan leaders he respects are or have been friends with the devil. This makes him want to return home to his wife, Faith, as he believes she is an innocent person who would be upset if she knew where her husband was. But the pair continue to venture into the wilderness and eventually come to a ceremony where people are worshipping the devil. Brown is upset to see his pious catechism teacher among the worshippers and then utterly devastated to see Faith there:
“My Faith is gone!” cried he, after one stupefied moment. “There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil! for to thee is this world given.”
Brown’s wife represents his faith and innocence. Discovering that she is masking wickedness is thus a dark awakening for Brown. He begins to realize that he cannot trust people and that the world is more wicked than he could have once ever believed. After this event, he is jaded and unhappy for the rest of his life.
What destroys Goodman Brown's faith?
"Young Goodman Brown" can be read as a parable, a story with a moral lesson. In it, Young Goodman Brown goes out into the woods at night and encounters people he knows who he once considered paragons of goodness and purity, such as his minister and Goody Cloyse, who taught him catechism. Like him, they have been tempted to attend a satanic worship service. Goodman Brown's biggest shock comes when he sees Faith, his beloved wife, there.
The next morning, whether he dreamed the ritual or it really happened, Goodman Brown responds to these friends and companions very judgmentally, not stopping to reflect that they did no more than he did. He is unable to integrate the idea that like him, they are a mix of good and evil. This destroys his faith in people because he can no longer take them at face value. He is ever wondering what they really are and suspecting them of hypocrisy. For example, the narrator tells us that
Often, awaking suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith, and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled, and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at [her].
One way to read the story is to see it as lesson in loving the people one is with, even if they are flawed, because constant suspicion will ruin a person's life. Another way is to read it as Goodman Brown projecting his own guilt and self-loathing at having gone to worship the devil onto those around him.
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