Conflict of Morality in "Young Goodman Brown"
             In "Young Goodman Brown", Nathaniel Hawthorne shows how Goodman Brown can't be content with himself untill he has accepted that he has the potential to be both good and evil. His single-minded nature brought on by the religious dogma that he has grown up with, prevents him from seeing both the good and evil within himself. At this time in his journey, he can only see the good within himself. I believe that Brown goes into the woods after being troubled by the conflict within him over what is good and what is evil. I think that he falls asleep in the forest. His dream shows him the inner conflict of good and evil within him that he won't allow himself to face because of his inability to be open-minded. This conflict that he has between good and evil within himself has Goodman Brown being faced with the evil within himself as a test of his faith in the goodness within himself. At first- when the Elder Man describes Goodman's father and grandfather as being evil- he doesn't identify with the evil that he sees as being within him. Then he becomes overwhelmed by feelings of evil when he doesn't accept that both good and evil thoughts need to co-exist within him in order for him to cope with his anger and thus be capable of acting good towards others. This ends with him identifying that evil exists in him when he is forced to join an unholy communion. But, he then completly ignores the good inside himself.
             Brown first comes face to face with the evil within him when he talks to the Elder Man. Brown is then presented with this evil within himself but doesn't identify his own capactity for evil with the descriptions of his grandfather and father's actions as evil since he thinks that he is "of good works to boot and abide no such wickedness."(166). He accepts their acitons as evil, but he doesn't understand how he could grow up to be like them and let hi
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