Good And Evil In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

Plot Young Goodman Brown embarks on a midnight journey through a dark and foreboding forest, on his way to fulfill his “present evil purpose.” He leaves his wife Faith behind, this being the type of errand he doesn’t wish to expose her to. Faith in Goodman Brown’s eyes is a good woman and “a blessed angel on Earth.” (Hawthorne, 1835) Although she wishes for him to stay, and he too feels guilty for leaving her to attend to this errand, he knows he must complete this task and knows that to mar her with the evil of it would taint her pureness of heart forever. He leaves Faith behind, to trudge through a dark, deep, and dense forest to his destination; a witch meeting. Along the way he meets several of his townspeople and, at the pinnacle of

Included are the clergy, the old woman who taught him his catechism, town counsel, and everyday citizens both of good repute and those with tarnished reputations. There in the midst of this evil revelry was Faith, and he and she were to be welcomed into the coven that very night. In the instant he begged her to resist the temptations offered in the ability to participate in the sins of all who were present, he found himself alone and calm to make his way back to Salem. He found Salem as he left it with its citizens going about their normal daily activity, his wife Faith waiting eagerly to welcome him home. He rebuffs her welcoming advance and instead and passes her by without a word. The night’s activities be they a dream or reality, change the heart of Goodman Brown; he spends the rest of his days cringing in the face of goodness and casting a skeptic eye towards his religion, the clergy, and mankind in general. After a long life of gloom, Goodman Brown dies without a legacy to leave behind, his grave marker being merely a

The protagonist of the story is of course Goodman Brown, who at the onset of the story is a typical puritanical citizen one would expect to read about in colonial America. He lives a good clean life, fears, God, and upholds the values of the church. Faith, Goodman’s new wife, although a less present character in the story is also portrayed in the same manner. Faith, unlike Goodman comes across as child-like in a way, which for that time in American history seems an accurate view of women, as seen by a man. The Old Man in the woods, appears not to only to be antagonist in the story but perhaps even the devil himself, as he tempts Goodman along the way to a witch meeting; the ultimate destination on his trip through the woods. Goody Cloyse, the Minister, and Deacon Gookin all represent in their actual presence, the good people of Salem and of the church. In a more symbolic sense they represent the entire idea of religion, Godliness, and goodliness. These characters all converge to bring about the entire meaning of the story, which this reader believes is a condemnation of the hypocrisy of organized