Brown: the Patient of Obsessive-Compulsive Neurosis Caused by the Pressure of the “Superego”---An Analysis of “Young Goodman Brown” from the Freudianism Perspective

Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the greatest Romanticist writers of 19th century America, his short fiction “Young Goodman Brown” had profound life philosophies hidden within, embodying the essence of psychoanalysis. This article aimed to explore the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive neurosis in Brown, and explained the reasons for his madness. Through the methodologies of psychoanalysis and pathology, this article found the result that Brown’s journey into the forest as his delusion stemming from the “id” of his unconscious self, he projected the crimes of this “id” onto the outside world, and ultimately became secluded from society as the final stage of his obsessive-compulsive neurosis. At last by analyzing Brown’s obsessive-compulsive neurosis symptoms and causes, this article made the conclusion that the fundamental cause of his tragedy was the devastation to human nature caused by the “Superego” under the strict Puritan dogma of the time, further illustrating Hawthorne’s severe critique towards Puritanism.