“So they parted; and the young man pursued his way, until, being about to turn the corner by the meeting-house, he looked back, and saw the head of Faith peeping after him, with a melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons.”
Pink Ribbons. Often seen worn in the hair of little girls. Pink is the color of princesses, the color of the cheeks of little children, the color of every wall of every one of my rooms growing up. Ribbons are cute, they are frivolous and flouncy. Together they are a symbol of childhood of innocence and of purity. This is why Faith, Goodman Brown’s wife, has them laced through her hair in the beginning of the story. Faith, already an early symbol of goodness, kindness, gaiety and purity, is depicted wearing these so that the reader may envision her as the ultimate symbol of the puritan lifestyle, she embodies purity almost in an Angelic way.
When Goodman Brown leaves Faith to begin his journey into the forest towards a demonic gathering, the pink ribbons do not disappear. They reappear in the story, but within a much different context. While Goodman Brown is deep into his journey, he encounters a man who is presumed to be the devil, and throughout the conversation held between Brown and the devil, Brown continuously claims that he will return home... “for Faith’s sake.” However, once the devil leaves, he hears voices of various people that he knows from his village-- one of the voices he recognizes belongs to Faith. Goodman Brown screams her name in a state of total brokenness, and as he does this, pink ribbons flutter down from the sky. Here the pink ribbons take on a new meaning- as they have literally fallen from the sky, they represent the fall of innocence, as even the most beautiful and pure object has now fallen from its place of glory, and into sin. Additionally, in this case the color pink also represents the mixing of both good and evil. White represents everything good and pure, red represents everything stained and evil. A mixture of these two colors creates the color pink.
Finally, the pink ribbons make their final appearance at the end of the story, when Goodman Brown returns to his home and sees Faith. She has pink ribbons still in her hair, which represents the illusion of innocence- a facade- that masks reality and evil and deception. Pink ribbons represent everything pure and innocent and lovely, yet the also represent the fall from grace and entrance into sin. This awkward understanding of both symbolic meanings forces one to wonder what truly is pure, what really is innocent, what can truly be defined as lovely and untouched by evil? If not even Faith could resist the pull of evil, and if pink ribbons really cannot symbolize innocence in its truest form, then what can?
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