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Michael Vega
Comp II
O’Connell
Paper 4
Into the Woods
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”, Goodman Brown must venture
into the woods at night for a reason not made immediately clear to the reader. His wife Faith
begs him not to go, but he reassures her, and begins his journey anyway. Secretly, he is going to
a meeting the Devil invited him to. Along the route, he comes across a strange man with a
serpent shaped staff, who can only be presumed to be the Devil. Goodman Brown is mortified to
find that his catechism teacher, Goody Cloyse, is also going to the meeting. At the meeting, he
sees respectable members of the community such as the minister and the deacon, along with
Indian priests. Goodman Brown is horrified to discover that his beloved wife, Faith, is also
there. He and Faith are brought before the Devil for the initiation ceremony. Goodman Brown
looks up to heaven to cry out for Faith and him to resist. This immediately ends the ceremony
and returns him to normality. Traumatized, and unable to distinguish whether the meeting was
real or a dream, Goodman Brown lives out the rest of his days bitter, suspicious, and distancing
himself from everyone.
The central idea is that when a person discovers that their role models are
corrupted, that person will experience disillusionment with everything they know. The
Devil gives Goodman Brown all these examples of how the people who he thought were
good, were actually evil. The Devil told Goodman Brown that he was there when his
grandfather whipped the Quakers and when his father burned down Indian villages during
King Philip’s War. A true Christian and follower of Jesus’s teachings would not commit
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such wicked acts. Goodman Brown witnesses his Catechism teacher, Goody Cloyse,
enthusiastically on her way to the Devil’s meeting. At the meeting, he sees the Minister, the
Deacon, his father, and everyone else from that community, that he mistakenly thought
were good, in attendance. His faith in his religion and in people is struck a mortal blow
when he hears his wife Faith scream, finds her ribbon, and sees her at the meeting. This
indicated that she has fallen to the Devil. This symbolizes his loss of Faith. Each revelation
unveiled to Goodman Brown weakens his faith and increases his disillusionment.
The protagonist is Goodman Brown. He is newlywed to Faith. The author and the
title refer to him as “Young” which is indicative of his inexperience and possibly his
naivety. This is probably why he is so easily manipulated and toyed with by the Devil. He
thinks he comes from a family of godly Christian people. Goodman Brown considers himself to
