Dougherty-Hawthorne blog

The Unpardonable Sin in Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown was the protagonist’s self imposed isolation from his community, religion, and wife that resulted from learning their true evil nature.
This short story starts with Young Goodman Brown taking leave of Faith, his wife of three
months adorned with pink ribbons, for a rendezvous in the forest. Faith appears to be a symbol of innocence and Goodman Brown’s believeth in Puritanism and the good of society. He meets the devil, in the guise of his father, on the way to a Witches Sabbath or Black Mass. The devil relates his past friendship with Goodman Browns’ father and grandfather and how he helped them punish a Quaker woman, and set fire to an Indian village. Goodman Brown also discovers that his former catechism teacher, Goody Cloyse, is a witch. Upon arriving at the assembly site for the Black Mass, Goodman Brown notes that the worshiping assemblage includes his towns-people, both the pious and ungodly, such as the church members of Salem village and those rioting at the tavern (“It was strange to see that the good shrank not from the wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints”). Upon hearing the voice of his wife and seeing a pink ribbon float from the sky, Goodman Brown declares, “My Faith is gone! “There is not good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil; for to thee is this world given.”
The devil declared, “Depending upon one another’s hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were
not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the Nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness.” Thus, Goodman Brown learns definitively that each member of his Puritan community is evil. With this knowledge he returned to Salem to commit the unpardonable sin, for henceforth, he lived in isolation from his wife, his community, and his religion. Upon his death, “…they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom.”
​In Roger Marvin’s Burial, Reuben Bourne creates his own nightmare by concealing his violation of a duty to his fellow warrior. As a result, he commits the unpardonable sin of isolating himself from his community and wife due to his self-imposed guilt.
​Roger Marvin’s Burial is the story of Reuben Bourne’s life after an incident involving Roger Malvin. Following Lovel’s Fight in which Bourne and Malvin were each severely wounded, Malvin, dying from his wounds, begs Bourne to save himself, requesting only that he return to give him a proper burial. At first, Bourne resists, but then leaves Malvin after swearing an oath to return, “he vowed by the blood that stained it (bloodstained handkerchief affixed to a sapling) that he would return, either to save his companion’s life or to lay his body in the grave.” Bourne was unable to resist the prospect of life and happiness with his fiancée, Dorcas, Malvin’s daughter. Upon returning to his village, Bourne lied to Dorcas saying that he stayed with Malvin until his death and buried his body to the best of his ability. Consequently, Bourne received much praise from his community, but it was not without a price for Bourne (“the poor youth … experienced from every tongue the miserable and humiliating torture of unmerited praise”). Concealment of what Bourne perceived as moral cowardice caused him loneliness or shame, “the secret effect of guilt.” “He was conscious that he had a deep vow unredeemed, and that an unburied corpse was calling to him out of the wilderness.” Thereafter, he became a selfish and irritable man, neglected his wife, and failed in his farming business. “The world did not go well with Reuben Bourne; and, …. he was finally a ruined man.” Subsequently, while hunting with his son, Cyrus, for deer, Bourne inadvertently shoots and kills his son at the very place where he originally left Malvin. Bourne perceives that he is redeemed by this death. “His sin was expiated, --- the curse was gone from him”.
​In The Minister’s Black Veil, the Rev. Hooper’s insight into either his own sin or that of the community causes him to isolate himself from his congregation and his beloved Elizabeth, an unpardonable sin.
​Rev. Hooper, a respected minister, conceals his face with a black veil. Why? The subject of a sermon provides us with a clue. “It was tinged, more darkly than usual, with the gentle gloom of Mr. Hooper’s temperament. The subject had reference to secret sin, and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own consciousness…”
The veil is a symbolic wall of isolation. By its use, Rev. Hooper effectively isolates himself from his community and from his love, Elizabeth who dissociates herself from him. He states to her, “Know, then, this veil is a type and a symbol, and I am bound to wear it ever, both in light and darkness, in solitude and before the gaze of multitudes, and as with strangers, so with my familiar friends. No mortal eye will see it withdrawn. This dismal shade must separate me from the world: even you, Elizabeth, can never come behind it!”
Hooper’s congregation, however, does not see the symbolism of the veil or it purpose in emphasizing the weakness of man. Rather, they only see its ugliness and are overwhelmed with fear.
Thus, by shielding himself from his community, Rev. Hooper lives a lonely and perhaps a sad life while his congregation lives in fear of him. It seems that the unpardonable sin is a two edged sword. Hooper and his congregation both experience adversity as a result of the isolation.
In My Kinsman, Major Molineux, an eighteen year old youth commits an unpardonable sin when turns his back on his aristocratic kinsman and thereby isolates himself from his European past.
This short story is set in pre-American revolutionary days when American colonists were
demonstrating their displeasure with British crown policies by abusing, and imprisoning the king’s colonial governors. The story deals with the maturing of an adolescent country youth who travels to a New England town to make his fortune with the help of an aristocratic relative. Through a series of experiences with various members of the town, he is rebuked in his inquiries concerning his kinsman’s whereabouts, and senses that there is little civility or respect for the king’s representatives. When faced with the ridicule of his own kinsman, he joins in and becomes one of the ridiculers. Hawthorne depicts their meeting as follows: “They stared at each other in silence, and Robin’s knees shook, and his hair bristled, with a mixture of pity and terror. Soon, however, a bewildering excitement began to seize upon his mind; the preceding adventures of the night, the unexpected appearance of the crowd, the torches, the confused din and the hush that followed, the spectre of his kinsman reviled by that great multitude, -- all this, and, more than all, a perception of tremendous ridicule in the whole scene, affected him with a sort of mental inebriety.”
​The youth experiences remorse for his actions and makes for the ferry to return to his family in the country, but is urged to remain in town and pursue his future without the help of kinsman.
​There is much symbolism in this story, but it clear that emotion and confusion overwhelm the youth’s “shrewdness” to his own detriment.
​In The Birthmark, a scientist who is obsessed with a mark on his wife’s otherwise beautiful face, unintentional kills her in an attempt to remove it with a potion he has formulated. Thus, Hawthorne is demonstrating the danger of science and this experiment, in particular, as an unpardonable sin. The scientist’s previous failures in various experiments and his love for his wife notwithstanding, the scientist chooses to proceed with the removal due to his irrational obsession with the birthmark. The potion, in fact, removes the mark, but kills the patient. What is especially curious in this story is the influence the scientist has on a wife who initially is less than thrilled at the prospect of removal and who does not think the mark an imperfection (“Georgiana, said he, has it never occurred to you that the mark upon your cheek might be removed? No, indeed, said she, smiling; but perceiving the seriousness of his manner, she blushed deeply. To tell you the truth it has been so often called a charm that I was simple enough to imagine it might be so”). Subsequently, when her husband assured her of the “practicability of removal,” She stated “If there be the remotest possibility of it, ….let the attempt be made at whatever risk. Danger is nothing to me; for life, while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust, -- life is a burden which I would fling down with joy. Either remove this dreadful hand or take my wretched life.” Clearly, she had become as obsessed with the mark as her husband was. Also noteworthy is the laughter of the husband and his assistant at the ostensible success of their experiment just prior to realizing that Georgiana was dying. (“Ah, clod! Ah, earthly mass! cried Aylmer, laughing in a sort of frenzy, you have served me well! Matter and spirit – earth and heaven – have both done their part in this! Laugh, thing of the senses! You have earned the right to laugh.”) It would seem that the husband’s experiment is at this moment more important than the love of his life, a rather obvious disconnect.