In "My Kinsman Major Molineux," the innocent Robin learns of evil and is made more shrewd. In "Young Goodman Brown," Brown sees evil perhaps more powerfully than Robin. But instead of making him more complete and more shrewd, it embitters him, and he dies a broken, joyless man. Why the difference?
1. They both are naive.
€Robin doesn't realize the two-sided nature of most men, specifically of himself and of his kinsman.
€Brown doesn't realize the evil that dwells in all men's and women's hearts.
2. They start their journies differently.
€Robin's purpose in coming to Boston is to make something of himself.
€Brown's purpose in taking the night journey is to give himself over to the devil.
Question: How does Brown rationalize his action?
3. Their guides are quite different.
€Aside from the devil, Robin is guided by a wise friend who gives him sage advice.
€YGB is only guided by the devil.
4. While they both "surrender," the effects of their surrenders differ.
€Robin, faced with the evil in his kinsman and with his own naive nature, wants to go home. But his wise friend prevents him from making that mistake.
€Brown, on the other hand, surrenders his Faith and never quite wholly regains it.
5. Both suffer from a kind of powerlessness despair.
€Robin, when faced with the tarred and feathered relative, laughs aloud in a kind of insane howl.
€Brown feels powerless to resist the evil.
6. Their experiences leave them with different kinds of perceptions.
€Robin sees both good and evil.
€Brown sees the evil of the other more distinctly than his own evil: a fatal perception.
7. Both are "saved" in some way.
€Robin is saved by the good advice of his friend.
€Brown is saved when he tells his wife to "look up to heaven".
8. They have different ends.
€We can assume Robin will become shrewd and make it in the big city.
€We know that Brown has tasted too much of evil, doesn't see his own evil as clearly as the evil of others, and turns into a desparate man, despite the fact that he sought and found a kind of redemption.