The story of “Young Goodman Brown” unravels as the titular character abandons his spouse called Faith despite her protests. However, Goodman Brown assures Faith that he will return shortly and that, as long as she continues to pray and lead a pious life, nothing can harm her. He leaves for his urgent errand in the forest.
Shortly afterward Goodman Brown enters the forest, he encounters a man that bears a strange resemblance to him. The man is holding a shaft shaped like a snake, which seems to move. The man offers Brown to use the shaft claiming that it will make the trip easier for him. However, Brown refuses, assuring the mysterious man that his family has always valued Christian traditions and beliefs highly. The man dissuades Brown from believing in his family’s values by showing that Brown’s family has been associating with him. Afterward, Brown and the man come across a local villager, Goody Cloyse, who turns out to be a witch.
Goody Cloyse and local villagers start a ceremony to worship evil. Scared and disturbed, Brown runs searching for Faith in the forest, yet he fails to find her. Still convinced that his wife has also succumbed to the ways of evil, he grabs the shaft and is about to join the festivity, yet he fails to see Faith there. As he is about to be converted, he sees that another person to be converted has been brought, which is Faith. Brown convinces Faith to abandon the feast and resist temptations.
The next day, as Brown returns to his village, Goodman Brown starts seeing people for who they really are. Even Faith is no longer attractive or worth loving for him. He recognizes the villagers as sinful and spends the rest of his life depressed and suffering (Hawthorne).
Work Cited
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Young Goodman Brown.” Eastoftheweb.com, n.d. Web.