Abstract

Young Goodman Brown, known as "the heart of the fable", is a famous short story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of the outstanding representatives of American Romanticism. Throughout the whole story, lots of symbols are used to express the evil of humanity. This thesis analyzes the symbols from three aspects---characters, scenes and other objects. There are eight symbols in this thesis as follows: Goodman Brown, Faith, Fellow-traveler, forest, fearful dream, sunset, pink ribbon, staff and devil, respectively symbolizing goodness, malignity, temptation and so on. This thesis aims to explore the functions of symbolism in expressing the theme of the novel----the depravity and hypocrisy of humanity

Key words: Young Goodman Brown, symbolism, humanity, depravity, temptation.

摘要

《小伙子古德曼布朗》是纳撒尼尔霍桑最著名的短篇小说之一，被誉为“心之寓言”。小说通过叙述小伙子古德曼布朗的森林之旅，揭示作者对人性善恶的理解和剖析。本文开头先简要的介绍了作者及其作品，之后从小说的三大类象征意象——人物，场景和其他物品的描写分析了小说的深层次象征含义。全文共提到了九个意象，分别是主人公古德曼布朗、妻子费丝、旅途同伴、傍晚和夜晚、森林、噩梦、手杖和粉色丝带，分别象征了人性的善良、邪恶和诱惑等。除此之外，本文还探究了象征手法在表达人性的邪恶和虚伪上的作用。通过探究小说中一系列意象的象征含义，更好的解读了这部短篇小说。

关键词：《小伙子古德曼布朗》; 象征；人性；邪恶；诱惑

1. Introduction 
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), born in Salem, Massachusetts, wrote many famous novels in his life. He is one of the outstanding representatives of American Romanticism in 19th century. “Hawthorne’s works belong to romanticism or dark romanticism,” (Reynolds 524) and also belong to “cautionary tales that suggest that guilt, sin, and evil are the most inherent natural qualities of humanity.” (Wayne 140) He is good at exposing the inner conflict of characters and describing people’s psychological activities. Owing to his rich imagination, he can use lots of symbols to express the theme and excavate the hidden meaning. With strong religious atmosphere, his novels are all mystical. Although Hawthorne is not a Puritan, Puritanism and Calvinism have great influence on his works. As a Romantic writer, he pays high attention to the real situation of human soul, which can be found in his short story Young Goodman Brown.