While sitting in Regent’s park, Peter Walsh nods off to an incredibly interesting dream. I’d say that those with Fruedian kinks would be most delighted to pick and analyze Peter’s dream through his psychoanalytical lens. However, this dream strongly reminded me of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “Young Goodman Brown.” Peter Walsh’s dream journey contrasts Goodman Brown’s own journey through a forest scene. 

Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown is a story of religious morality, temptation and faith. It follows Goodman Brown as he takes a stroll through the nighttime forest to meet with the devil, disguised as a man. Throughout their walk, Goodman Brown tries to hold himself together as a good Christain who would never side with the devil, while the devil attempts to sway him to his side. To persuade Goodman Brown the devil shows him how those most dear to him have already sided with him. Among those Goodman Brown sees/hears are the Christian ministers from his town, his wife Faith (note the irony) and his father and grandfathers. Upon acquiring this knowledge Goodman Brown gives into the devil. Peter Walsh’s dream parallels and contrasts against Hawthorne’s own short story.

Although Goodman Brown struggles to maintain his faith, Peter seeks to obtain some form of redemption or comfort in female figures. Peter’s dream commences with, “The solitary traveller, haunter of lanes, disturber of ferns, and devastator of great hemlock plants” (57). The reader presumes the traveller to be Peter himself, and we see how this traveller traverses, “down the path with his eyes upon the sky and branches” (57). In place of the human-like pagan figure of the devil, Peter’s dream features women in three ways. Peter imposes womanhood onto the surrounding forest scene of nature and encounters three different figures of women all of which call and beckon him towards them. The first, “[Murmurs] in his ear like sirens lolloping away on the green sea waves” (57). This beautiful temptress could be the devil of Peter’s dream who attempts to lure him to his death just as the devil tries to corrupt Goodman Brown. The second woman the traveller encounters, “as he advances down [the] forest ride” (57) is “made of sky and branches” (57) and she bestows compassion, comprehension and absolution. This woman seems to be the complete opposite to the siren previously mentioned, while the siren could compare to the devil, this woman could be the traveller’s own version of Faith. However, it’s interesting that the traveller views her as an angel who’ll take him into “nothingness” (58). 

The last woman the traveller encounters is found “beyond the wood” (58). This is also an interesting parallel to Young Goodman Brown, because the devil also pulls him beyond the forest towards the end of the story to some kind of ceremony. The traveller finds himself in a village face to face with, “an elderly woman who seems to seek, over a desert, a lost son” (58). Hawthorne’s story also has Goodman Brown’s mother at the ceremony who tries to dissuade and push him away. The motherly woman the traveller encounters transforms into a landlady who asks him a question and yet the traveller cannot respond. The traveller has no one to turn to, just as Peter has no one to turn to. Goodman Brown also has no one to turn to because in the end he finds himself alone in the forest just as the traveller finds himself alone. Neither the traveller, Goodman Brown, or Peter find any solace/redemption on their journey. Goodman Brown loses his innocence and lives his life in fear and pessimism, while Peter finds no absolution from the inner strife of his feelings for Clarissa and lives in a tortuous cycle of (about 30 years) reliving his rejection unable to move on from Clarissa.