Young Goodman Brown

Young Goodman Brown
The short story “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a great example of the use of symbolism and allegory to stimulate the reader’s intuitive thinking. Almost everything in the story has a double meaning and I have to carefully analyze every sentence so that I can interpret the author’s meaning and what he is trying to convey in the writing. Through symbolism, I determined that Hawthorne writes of a man who is coming of age and learns that there is evil in everyone and upon this knowledge, he is forever changed.
From the start, Hawthorne describes Goodman Brown as a good Puritan who is devoted to his wife Faith. “My love and my Faith,” declared Brown to his wife as he told her that he would soon be back from the journey he had to make (McMichael 685). Here Brown turns his back on “Faith” to venture off into the woods and perhaps put an end to the curiosity he has about evil. At the beginning of his walk through the woods, Brown runs...