Reinforcing
this explication is the exclamation prior to it, “Poor
little Faith!” This simple three word
sentence takes on duplicate meanings:
Brown’s feeling of sorrow for leaving his
wife, Faith; as well as, Brown’s self condemnation for not having enough of the abstract
quality of faith. In another example,
when the devil comments on Brown’s tardiness, Brown excuses himself by saying,
“Faith kept me back a while”.
(Hawthorne/p.937). In the literal
sense, Faith, the wife, did plead with her husband not to go on
his journey; on the other hand, it is faith, the abstraction,
that intercedes between evil and mankind.
Hawthorne never unveils the primordial cause
effectuating Brown’s journey into the forest. By Hawthorne starting the reason behind the journey in medias
ras, he opens the door to a general tale that Levy describes as a “man’s
journey into the mystery of evil…in the broadest possible terms.” (Levy/p.376).
