By Nikkie Hanley

If what is Uncanny comes from our repressed unconsciousness, and if one contemplates on the subject for some time, it may be seen that the formulation of the uncanny exists in a realm of consciousness where all things – yes, all things – are created and destroyed, in terms relative to the subject in contemplation. What I mean to say can only be demonstrated through my own mind, as it can be done by any individual who might venture into this realm of thought.

I rejected faith first when I was fourteen. I was alone; the majority of my adolescent friends were involved in the same Catholic Church as my family, and most were just weeks away from their Confirmation. Atheist, they spat laced with sour, and I thought, is this being a good Catholic? So, I was an “atheist” for some time; it was easier not to fight the name. I continued to search for clues of spirituality and higher energy in the world. I profess these ideas only to my closest friends –most of whom remain Catholic – who acknowledge my standing, but like my label as it is. I am Nikkie, the atheist friend.

I was baptized into the Catholic Church late. Before, I took Sunday school classes at my maternal grandparents’ Protestant Church, and even then, I knew that they had, at least, better communion wine[1]. Then, in my mind, I had two choices. Now, for better or worse, I have one: atheist. Then, of course, I have Catholic guilt.

This phenomenon occurred to me most recently. When I left faith the first time, like Goodman Brown in the story by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1835), I trembled at the thought of looking back. How humiliating that would be to ask forgiveness, still I find myself praying like Mrs. Ramsey and wondering where the hell it came from. Now, I wonder how faith can haunt me despite my decision. The answer is scary simple: it is inside of me, inside of my mind, in the place where the deepest fears of humanity exist. The uncanny is this: I may go to hell even if I do not believe in it.

When Goodman Brown departs for the forest, he leaves his wife Faith, “troubled with such dreams and such thoughts, that she’s afeard of herself sometimes.[2]” What riddles Faith cannot be described in conscious terms for it exists in the realm that is beyond her mind control. The truth is that what she fears most is herself, or rather, her metaphor: Faith is not reality as her husband craves; faith wavers, faith is fleeting. Faith belongs to the uncanny for how does one represent faith at all? She is a floating head with pink ribbons “still peeping after him” as her husband takes his leave. The pink ribbons materialize Faith; finding ribbons with no Faith, Goodman Brown is convinced that she is gone. At that moment, Goodman Brown’s uncanny experience is at a peak. Not only is he surrounded by what seems strange and evil, but the one thing he claims to know, he has found represented in an entirely unfamiliar fashion. Ribbons without faith is, indeed, terrifying, but it would be hard to argue, even in fiction, that Goodman Brown would have never seen or thought of Faith without her ribbons. This image in the forest is strange, but Goodman Brown’s discomfort comes from deeper than a mere oddity. He is petrified by the Uncanny resemblance: that which is the most disturbing is that which we can most closely believe as reality. Even if the representation is beyond our conscious understanding, it is recognized on deep mind levels: intuition, fear, cravings, and addictions: levels of our mind which we strive to control, conquer, and understand.

The juxtaposition Goodman Brown faces is no longer between good and evil[3]. It is not even (though perhaps more so) between knowledge and ignorance. Faith is the forest before nightfall. Her consciousness and her pink ribbons protect Goodman Brown from the truth. She lets him pretend he is not afraid, holding his fear in her eyes; he questions his faith, she hides his burden with love; he may fail, she fears but will not hear it. Faith holds these possibilities in herself, which allows them to manifest, thus creating uncanny thoughts and situations. Any man or woman may perform, consciously or unconsciously, all presumable and possible acts. It is this possibility, created by dreamy unconsciousness and later recognition, which monitors the character interactions[4]. Thus, the uncanny concocts further interactions that may or may not ever occur.

The eerie forest creates the dream-like conscious setting, thick with tree trunks and branches, low fog and startling companions. Goodman Brown’s fear is primarily state-of-mind, vertigo even, where he is so overcome that he can only go blind in defense. His first companion is quick to teach the good man otherwise. He is middle-aged “and bearing a considerable resemblance to [Goodman Brown], though perhaps more in expression than features.” What an ambiguous thing to say! The image is a metaphor for their uncanny likeness: not that they look alike, but that they are alike in a way that runs beneath their profiles[5]. The veil lifts as Goodman Brown reaches a degree of uncanny recognition that collapses the boundary between conscious and unconscious thoughts, and he is rattled by this new level of transparency. It is not long into the forest when he protests: “My father never went into the woods on such an errand,” and his companion counters that Goodman Brown is here following his patriarchal lines. To each their own repression; Goodman Brown finds, to his surprise and discomfort, he is not alone.

Still, he struggles to acknowledge the uncanny as real. His companion, he of the serpent, smiling, bequests Goodman Brown to follow him just a little further. “If I convince thee not,” he says, “thou shalt turn back.” The companion, later called the devil, for all intents and purposes evil, is not so; he offers Goodman Brown truth unveiled, unlike Faith, who serves her feminine duties as a protecting Angel[6]. The companion is the most direct metaphor for the uncanny: faithless thoughts and harmful decisions as natural and internal work of human beings. I do not mean to say that is our intention as human beings; I mean merely to suggest that the existence of the uncanny is a product of the most basic binary construction – good and evil – and that “evil” as a concept represents a metaphor greater than any individual can even begin to hope to comprehend.

Fear and evil are the two key word-concepts to contemplating Young Goodman Brown through any lens. Primary causes of fear and evil require one blanket term: the unknown. Fear is change. Evil is lurking in corners. Jump, I know you cannot see the landing pad, jump! I can imagine the ledge, though I have not been there. I have fallen in my dreams. In the forest, Goodman Brown hears the dark figure: “Depending on one another’s hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now ye are undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind.” Humankind is unpredictable, humankind knows not their own strength[7], humankind seeks to prove themselves as “world conquerors,” but they cannot even tell if dreams are real or not. The overwhelming spontaneity that exerts itself through human beings exists so infrequently – we repress it under the controls of institutions and panopticons – social and individualized persecution censors conscious beings to the point of fear, even alone with our thoughts.

Humankind vibrates in a narrow world of what is known, for they fear to venture into the closest world of truth: that of their own mind. Nothing exists which has not been thought of once before. There are no things but the ideas of things and those who dare to create beyond the walls of their conscious minds. The impossible possibility exists in a realm which can only be accessed once ignorance is combatted: women stop suffering for men[8] and men stop asking us to, men stop fearing sensitivity, and humankind stops fearing itself. It is a job – it is the job of humankind – to redefine evil and fear in the face of this knowledge. Only then can the uncanny be reached and contemplated without fear, for no evil lies there, only thoughts about what is evil. And hell, that’s where hell is, too.

[1] It is actually grape juice.

[2] Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Young Goodman Brown”. An Introduction to Theory and Practice. Ed. Charles E. Bressler. Pearson Education, Inc., 2011. 239-48. Print.

[3] Good being Faith, evil being the forest.

[4] Human interactions in general.

[5] Something more profound than soulmates. Their uncanny energies match somehow.

[6] Professions for Women. Virginia Woolf. (1931).

[7] In physical nor mental terms.

[8] I might add the men that suffer for women as well. While I do not intend sexist notions nor advocate for gender role reversal, historically, women sit in the draft and are the last to eat, etc.