"Young Goodman Brown," by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is the story of a man who leaves Salem and travels to an unknown road in a shadowy forest in the middle of the night and is faced with many obstacles. Young Goodman Brown, the main character, must decide if he will carry his journey out till the end, or turn back and not gain wisdom of the truth about himself and others. Nathaniel Hawthorne traces Young Goodman Brown's experiences, physically and mentally, paralleling the expedition and showing how he discovers that humans are truly evil by nature; therefore, changing his views of other humans and life itself.
             In the beginning, Young Goodman Brown is faced with a decision to stay home with his wife another night or to take off on his journey. This parallels his mental decision to leave behind all that he knew to be true, up until that point and discover the truth no matter how harsh it may be, when Goodman Brown decides to go out alone to find himself. Faith, his wife, is urging him to stay with her instead of leaving that night. She almost convinces Goodman Brown to stay, but his desire to discover himself overpowers his need to stay with Faith. The struggle going on inside of Goodman Brown's head is really between remaining innocent and having faith in the nature of man or embarking on the journey to discover his true self, no matter what that may be. The jumping off point for Goodman Brown is when he has made his final decision to ignore his wife's pleas and take his journey. It is ironic when Faith finally lets him go and says, "Then God bless you! [...] and may you find all well when you come back" (Hawthorne 24). He is only gone one night and nothing substantial changes in Salem village while he is gone, but since he is so dramatically changed emotionally during his expedition, he remains miserable and skeptical for the rest of his life, due to knowing the truth about human nature.
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