symbolism in Y G B

The story about Young Goodman Brown centers around the allegory of a man pitted against his past and his desires to reach beyond that which his benighted heaven would put before him. The allegory is Christian due to the references in Young Goodman Brown to the devil and Satan; it only seems logical that the crux of the story is based upon the religious imagery of Hawthorne's New England in the times of Salem and active religious strife. The beginning of the story mentions the goodman's wife, Faith. The names of the characters alone serve as an indication of what Hawthorne puts as an obvious religious allegory with the goodman and faith soon to be pitted against an unspeakable evil. The goodman even swears that after this night he will "cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven." The devil awaits Young Goodman Brown as he states that the clock of the old south was striking but a few minutes past (Hawthorne is stating how quickly the devil can move--intensifying the airs of the preter...