Symbolism in Young Goodman Brown

The short story Young Goodman Brown portrays a man’s wild journey to leave his faith, home, and security behind to take a chance with the devil in to an adventure into a dark forest. Young Goodman Brown, the main character goes off into the woods and undergoes a life-transforming experience. In this story the author Nathaniel Hawthorne seems to be infatuated with the themes of sin and guilt. William Hawthorne, one of Hawthorne’s ancestors, was in fact a judge in the Salem witch trials, which is probably where the author’s interest in the twin themes of sin and guilt come from. Hawthorne widely employs the use of symbolism through the story, which avoids the logical mind to tap in to its more dream like processes. We can deduce the use of symbolism by exploring three aspects of the story; the setting, the characters, and the plot.
The setting where the story takes place plays a very important role in the story thus it is one of the main uses of symbolism. Goodman Brown leav...