{A few minor problems mar an otherwise good paper: A- 90%}

A Graves-Jung Model Comparison of

Nathaniel Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown
Juan A. Martinez
Texas Tech University

A Graves-Jung Model Comparison of

Nathaniel Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown
Nathaniel Hawthorne creates an ideal character to study through the lens of the GravesJung model when he takes Goodman Brown on his malevolent journey through the woods in
search of Satan. In analyzing this journey we will see how Young Goodman Brown displays and
traverses the different levels of the Graves-Jung model beginning with stage two, The Truster

through stage five, The Appreciator of Life, and in a stroke of irony, regression to level ones
Survivor.
Goodman Brown is introduced to us at level two; {:}a trusting innocent newly married
man who is leaving his aptly named wife Faith. At this stage, Brown is shown to be trusting of
his wife and safe in the knowledge that his religious faith will carry his young wife safely
through the night. While Brown is fully aware that he is about to embark on an evil journey, he
believes that his wife is entrenched in religious holiness and thus safe. This belief is what places
him at the second level of this model. He trusts that all is as it seems to be on face level. He
truly believes his wife to be chaste in her religious belief, all the while taking on the role of the
trickster and bucking what he believes are the cultural taboos of consorting with the devil. It is
in this manner that his role in the second level is two-fold. The first is his trusting belief that his
wifes worry about his journey away from her is based solely on his own safety;{delete;} and not
{on}her own {possible} fear and worry that she herself will be making the same like {delete
like} journey to the middle of the woods in search of Satan. His second display of this model
manifests itself as the trickster, as Goodman Brown knows full well that his journey is a taboo
journey in nature as he is setting out to seek, and subsequently be sanctified {?}, by Satan
himself.
Brown quickly and almost simultaneously traverses into the third level of the GravesJung model of unscrupulous competitor and hero. While still acknowledging his wifes religious
faith and feeling safe in the knowledge that she will be safe if only she follows her beliefs, he
says to her as a means of assuring her safety, Amen! cried Goodman Brown. Say thy prayers,
dear Faith, and go to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee. (Hawthorne, 26-27) In this
short passage, Goodman Brown is assuring complete safety to his wife if she just holds on to her
religious faith, while he intends on continuing on his ill fated journey. Of course, the
unscrupulous nature is truly displayed when he follows up with this passage, Well, shes a
blessed angel on earth; and after this one night Ill cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven.

(Hawthorne, 32-33) He displays his unscrupulous nature in assuring her safety if she but follows
his sound advice, and in the very next breath intends on saving himself, of course only after
indulging his evil desires, by clinging to her and thusly being allowed into heaven based on her
good graces. Let me clear this up and make my point a bit more succinctly; Goodman Brown is
giving his insurance {assurance} of salvation to his wife, which at the time this story is set in, is
vital. If the head of the house is evil, then the house is said to be evil as well. However, upon
his assurance to his wife, he acknowledges that he himself is on and {an} evil errand. His goal,
in his own words, is that upon completion of his evil errand, he will rely on her goodness and
fealty to God, to gain entrance into heaven. This is how he displays his place in the third level of
the Graves-Jung model. He is at once, assuredly saving his wifes soul, admitting to himself that
he is on his way to do evil, and acknowledging that he will instead rely on his wifes goodness to
gain entrance into heaven upon completion of his evil deeds. {What you are saying in this
paragraph is perceptive, but you weaken it by saying it over and over}
This of course quickly leads him into the fourth level of the model, the orderer/shadow.
Through his journey into the woods, he encounters not only Satan, but a series of people that he
had earlier known to be holy and good people. In this portion of the story he comes face to face
with his true nature, and whats more, the true nature of those he believed to be holy as we saw
him while he was in level two of the model. Upon his realization of the true nature of what is
seemingly at the heart of every person he has counted on for his religious and soul{}s salvation,
he begins to feel true empathy and an altruistic need to save his wife, whom he finds to be at the
very meeting he was set out toward. Upon seeing these people, and most especially his own
wife, he begins to exclaim and beg that she should turn back and not give in to the very evil he
was intended on giving into. It is the nature of actual caring for not only him, but more so for his
wifes salvation that displays the stage four characteristics. He isnt feigning hero characteristics
as he did when he told his wife to sleep early and stay in and she would then be saved; he was
absolute in his wishes for her to turn away and reject the evil that was all around, Faith! Faith!

cried the husband, look up to heaven, and resist the wicked one. (Hawthorne, 251-252) He
went from trusting everyone in the town he believed to be good and holy, to seeing what they
truly were in their shadow forms, and still screamed for his wife to reject them all. It was a
true attempt to save her.
It is at this stage of the story that Brown has entered into the fifth stage of the model,
where he truly appreciates the life he and his wife had and could have if they rejected the evil
around them. He had finally realized that his life was good and at this point of the story was
screaming for his wife to reject it all and return with him to the life that he had so readily left
when he first set out on this journey. He displayed the very concern over the devotion to the
promises that Satan had promised should he have pledged his fealty to him, and realized that his
former life was everything hed wanted all along. It is at this point that Browns regression from
stage five to stage one comes. While his realization of what was to become of him and his wife,
he regresses at once into seeking mere survival. The sort of survival we see in Goodman Brown
is not necessarily that of one hoping just to breathe. Instead, the survival he is seeking is that of
his eternal soul. I equate it to level one because it is the very essence of what the people of the
time and place sought in their lifetime. It wasnt enough to live life during that period of time, in
that place. It was the promise of eternal salvation that was the promise of life. If that was gone,
then life was gone and there was no reason to go on living. This is the survival that Young
Goodman Brown sought in his regression to the Graves-Jung Model. {Although you are quite
right that his isolation from those around him is in a sense a regression to L1, if, in fact, he is still
believing in the possibility of eternal salvation, he is at L4. For it to be L1, he would have to
have lost faith so completely that all that was left was that just breathing.}
Nathaniel Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown seemed to me the ideal story to set
against the Graves-Jung Model as a comparison. The title character showed the first five levels
in clear form. In our study thus far of the model, it is clear that regression is common place as
well, and in this story Goodman Brown is seen to have done just this very thing. He traversed

the levels as a truster and trickster to an unscrupulous hero, into a true care giver and hero while
coming to face not only his shadow, but that of the entire townspeople. Finally, he comes to a
stage of appreciating the life he had and wanting only for what was before he set out on his ill
fated journey into the dark woods and lastly regresses to stage one. This regression is common
after a traumatic experience. Goodman Browns trauma was brought on of his own volition
when he set out to find the evil he encounters in the woods, except upon learning that his wife
was along the same ride, he finds himself regressed into stage one clinging to survival of his
immortal salvation.

References
Hawthorne, Nathaniel (2012-11-26). Young Goodman Brown. Kindle Edition.