Nathaniel Hawthorne was a descendant of Puritan immigrants who spent most of his life in Massachusetts and was devoted to writing a story “Young Goodman Brown.” I am writing an essay arguing how the story is related to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of personality, and the three sections of personality - the Id, the ego, and the superego. They all are related to Goodman Brown’s character.
In this essay first I will argue that the woods and the village people in “Young Goodman Brown”, represent Freud’s id, that is, primary pleasure and behaviour contrary to the ego and the superego. The first sign of excessive desires is when Goodman Brown leaves his loving wife and sets off on his further journey. In this story Goodman Brown let his wife sit back because of his journey and shows his struggle between his sexual desire and his objective. This journey sets off on a road through a troubled forest, and afraid of what might be behind each tree, thinking that there might be the devil himself sneaking there, which thoughtfully is the id ( unconsciousness). The old man he meets in the forest represented the Id because the shape of old goodman brown said “Mingled with fine wheat and the fat of a new-born babe” these lines explains that Young Goodman Brown, who persistently hid his inner desires to mix with the social devilish society . Whatever he saw in the woods was just his dreams and unconsciousness mind. The devil is unconscious according to Freud’s view because it was not a Goodman Brown’s real life, he was living in his dream state. And according to Freud, the id always seeks pleasure.
Second, I will argue that Salem village and the Goodman Brown in “Young Goodman Brown” represent Freud’s Ego.It is a consciousness and the rational governing agency of the psyche. Goodman Brown is shocked that in village, Every citizen has secret hidden away. It was his Id which did not want him to see his realistic...