Hawthorne is an excellent novelist. Many scholars from home and abroad have paid more attention to his works in more than 160 years. They did researches on these aspects: humanity, tragedy, Puritanism and others. However, I find that few scholars have systematically researched Hawthorne’s Puritanism in “Young Goodman Brown”. Some studies are unilateral. I think there is some space for me to do a research. What is more, the story “Young Goodman Brown” made a deep impression on me, when I read it for the first time. And I am very curious about Hawthorne’s life and his thoughts. So, based on the previous studies, I do a research on Hawthorne’s Puritanism by analyzing Goodman Brown’s tragedy. In this paper, two questions need to be solved. First, is there any inevitability in Goodman Brown’s tragedy? Second, how does Goodman Brown’s tragedy reflect Hawthorne’s contradictory Puritanism? Dealing with the questions is conducive to understand Hawthorne’s attitude towards Puritanism. It also helps us know relevant American history and learn Hawthorne’s spirits of thinking independently and exploring constantly.

This paper can be pided into six chapters. Chapter one is a brief introduction about the content of the short story “Young Goodman Brown”, research background, research purposes and the structure of this paper. Chapter two is the literature review. There are two parts: first, Hawthorne’s contribution to American literature and research situation; second, some information about Puritanism. Chapter three pays attention to the inevitability of Goodman Brown’s tragedy. Hawthorne arranges many clues to imply Goodman Brown’s ending. I mainly analyze the environment and characters. Chapter four is the analysis of Hawthorne’s contradictory Puritanism from not only the final ending of Brown but also the process of forming his ending. On the one hand, Hawthorne inherits some ideas of Puritanism, such as the original sin. On the other hand, he criticizes the Puritan’s hypocrisy and shows his own thinking about salvation. In Chapter five, the causes of Hawthorne’s contradictory Puritanism are pided into two parts: family factor and social factor. The last chapter is the conclusion of this paper.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) is the founder of American psychoanalytic novel and one of the most excellent novelists in the history of American literature, and his works are acknowledged as the most brilliant cultural heritage (Wang Yinghui, 2009: 12). Hawthorne wrote plenty of works all his life. Some short stories were created in his early stage, such as “Young Goodman Brown”, “Rappaccini’s Daughter” and Mosses from an Old Manse. Since the year 1850, Hawthorne devoted great efforts to long novel writing, and published several novels, for example The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables and The Marble Faun. Hawthorne began to be really famous in America when his novel The Scarlet Letter was published. The Scarlet Letter is one of the most representative works of Hawthorne. It is The Scarlet Letter that earned Hawthorne great fame and the firm position in American literature (Chen Qin, 2013: 1). Most of his works reflect Hawthorne’s thoughts and the real society at that time. And they influenced many scholars and writers in the nineteenth century.

Nathaniel Hawthorne has lasted his reputation in the field of American literature for more than one hundred years. During the long period, scholars at home and abroad are still enduring for reading and exploring Hawthorne and his works. Studies on Hawthorne’s works are inclusive of everything. For instance, there are topics on not only the society, morality and culture of the Puritans in the seventeenth and eighteenth century but also the theology, structuralism, romanticism and biblical archetype.

Hawthorne is under the deep influence of Puritanism, and his works are full of the atmosphere of Puritanism. Domestic and foreign research on Hawthorne’s Puritanism has a long history. The studies seem to be more focused on his long novels, for instance, The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables. And scholars pay less attention to this topic in Hawthorne’s other works, like the short story “Young Goodman Brown”. For Li Xiaomei, she researches the struggle and entanglement of humanity and pinity to elaborate Hawthorne’s contradictory Puritanism. Li Xiaomei says that “Nathaniel Hawthorne uses rich symbols and meanings in his works, emphasizes on mining people’s inner world, describing people’s psychological changes and the impact of inner conflicts on people, especially psychological impact of religious, moral on the human” (2012: 38). Wang Qinguang explored Hawthorne’s Puritanism by analyzing Goodman Brown’s death. He thought that the story explains Hawthorne’s view of sin and redemption. Few scholars systematically research Hawthorne’s contradictory Puritanism in “Young Goodman Brown”.