Young Goodman Brown
Mankind has a history of turning away from God and embracing evil. From the days of Cain to the present, there are a chain of men and women who have forsaken the promise of salvation in favor of what is called Satanism. In Hawthorne's story, Goodman Brown is faced with this challenge. He must endure the trials of Satan, learn troubling facts along the way and lose the one he loves. The choice to be made is succumbing to the devil and suffering eternal damnation, or embracing God and be saved. Goodman Brown, symbolic for "any good man," dwells in the village of Salem. The Massachusetts town of Salem was once a site of a horrific witch hunt and is a symbol of pure evil. It is ironic that Hawthorne chose this site for the setting and the characters have all the traits of a "normal" citizen of Salem. All of the good people appear to be god fearing Puritans, when in fact they all are practicing devil-worshipers.
Faith, whose name has a double meaning, is Brown's wife, love and later, divine inspiration. Continuing on, the men talk of the journey that night, prayer and the local clergy. Boston is 16 miles away from Salem, meaning this mystery man ran a mile a minute to arrive in Salem. His wife, like any "faith" pleads with him not to travel out that night, "pray thee, put off your journey until sunrise. Brown realizes Cloyse worships the devil and the old woman foreshadow an act as she says: "for they tell me, there is a nice young man to be taken into communication to-night" (200). He argues with the devil that following him and being a servant of evil is wrong and he will return to his faith. house and wife at sunset, we meet his wife Faith. A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts. The devil offers his staff to Brown another time and gives it to Goody Cloyse. The staff seams to be symbolic of an offering of evil. As he continues, the path and his thoughts become darker and a nervous Brown proclaims: "What if the devil himself should be at my very elbow!" (197). The woman, Goody Cloyse, who had taught Brown his catechism, recognized the companion as the devil right away. While the conversation continued, a woman appeared on the path.
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