Dreams vs. Reality
‘Young Goodman Brown’ by Nathaniel Hawthorne exhibits a naive newlywed and his
ironic ideal that everyone is innocent and good. Goodman Brown believes the idea of innocence
in humanity from his life as a Puritan in the town of Salem, Massachusetts in the 1600’s.
Goodman Brown’s loss of faith happens during an dream in which he sees the most notably
‘good’ people in his town succumb to the devil. Hawthorne uses different characters to represent
three different parts of Goodman Brown’s life that are affected by his eventual lack of theology
as a result of his dream. This loss of innocence and belief condemns the individual to a life of
anxiety.
Goody Cloyse is a representation of the town in which Goodman Brown lives in. This is
