"The Young Goodman Brown"

I think the names that Nathaniel Brown chose for the protagonists was the most important part of "Young Goodman Brown." It definitely led me into the story feeling a certain way about each character. It seemed at first glance that Goodman Brown was just that, a "good man." I wondered if Goodman was actual his first name, or if it was a nickname given to him by the town. But what was it that drew him into the woods into the night, where the witches are? What would cause him to stray away from his loving wife? Goodman Browns wife's name is Faith. "And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons on her cap while she called to Goodman Brown" (Hawthorne 539). I believe the name Faith was fitted for Goodman Brown because it seemed as though his faith was what he was trying to hold onto in the story. Faith symbolized everything that Goodman Brown was before he entered the forest. He was a good, loving, and faithful husband, but some other force had led him into the forest and he could not figure out why. I liked the way Hawthorne used the wife to represent the reasons that Goodman went into the Forest. When he is approached in the gloomy forest and asked why he took so long, Goodman Brown simply replied, "Faith kept me back a while" (Hawthorne 540). Any other name would not lead me to believe that Goodman was questioning his own beliefs, but Faith had to mean something. As Hawthorne says, the name was "aptly" chosen, and I can see why in this story.