”Young Goodman Brown“中粉色丝带的象征意义

郑金力

The description of the pink ribbon appears three times in different scenes, the first time is when Brown and his wife say goodbye, looking back to see his wife reluctantly left, and the pink ribbon on her body, at that time Brown blamed himself for leaving his wife to go to the appointment; The second time was when he was deep in the forest and saw the pious old man who was usually highly respected, he suddenly felt the hypocrisy and sin of human nature and cried out Faith, which is both the name of his wife and the name of faith. He wanted the power to fight evil. However, when he was angry and desperate, pink ribbons fell from the sky and hung on the tree. Brown was utterly despairing, lamenting that his wife was gone, that his faith was lost; The third time was when Brown came back from the forest, Faith ran to meet him in a hurry, wearing a pink ribbon on her head, but what Brown saw was only the hypocrisy of his wife, the once perfect and pious wife was gone, and he completely abandoned his faith. Each appearance of the pink ribbon hinted at a psychological change in Brown. Pink is a mixture of red and white, white in the West is the meaning of purity and justice, just as the western wedding dress is white; Red means evil and is associated with killing. Pink ribbon is a combination of purity and sin. Pink ribbon is a symbol of Faith herself, with both evil and pure sides. Faith is meant to resist evil, just as when her husband left her, she tried to keep him, just because she realized that her evil side was moving, and her pure side instinctively wanted to resist the evil in her heart. But she failed, because her husband still went to the forest, and she, a pure woman of faith, even appeared in the scene of the devil's meeting, indicating the evil in her heart.