![]() As Goodman Brown begins to fear that everyone he knows is a hypocritical sinner, the pink ribbons take on a new meaning: they now symbolize the mere superficial appearance of innocent faith. YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN came forth at sunset, into the street of Salem village, but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss with his young wife. ![]() In the forest, Goodman Brown loses his innocent faith and becomes certain that Faith has been tempted by the devil when he sees her pink ribbon fluttering down from the cloudy sky and snagging in a tree. Delicate (Faith lets “the wind play with the pink ribbons) and naively or childishly cheerful (Faith has a “melancholy air…in spite of her pink ribbons”), the pink ribbons symbolize faith and innocence. Undoubtedly one of Nathaniel Hawthorne ’s most disturbing stories, it opens as a. ![]() ![]() Hawthorne draws attention to Faith’s pink ribbons in the story’s first few paragraphs, when she tries to convince Goodman Brown to stay at home. Young Goodman Brown, initially appearing in Mosses from an Old Manse (1846) as both a bleak romance and a moral allegory, has maintained its hold on contemporary readers as a tale of initiation, alienation, and evil. ![]()
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