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This is a story about newly wed Goodman Brown, a religious and pious man, setting off on
a journey into the forest. He leaves behind his wife, Faith. He meets a man, the devil,
in the woods, who talks with him as they continue on a path.
As they walk, they come across people that Goodman Brown knows and respects. They are
all, however, on their way to a devil meeting. Goodman Brown is shocked, but remains calm.
Then he finds out his wife is going to the meeting and flips out. He decides to join
his wife in the conversion. The two of them are baptized by the devil before all of the
devil-worshiping townspeople when...Goodman Brown wakes up. It was all a dream.
However, he begins to look at everyone in town differently, with more cynicism and bitterness.
Ultimately, he dies a spiritually dead man. The moral of the story is: people aren't who
they seem they are.
On the surface, Hawthorne presents a story about a man and his faith, because the wife's
name is also Faith. See what he did there? We know that the marriage between man and
woman, or man and his faith, is fairly new, only three months, which makes sense as to
why Goodman Brown is so shaken up.
The wilderness also is important to note, as it creates a separation between Civilization
and the "Wild." This Wild is associated not only with demonic attributes, but also those
of the Indian (Native American) culture, a pretty common attitude at the time.
The ending of the story is questionable, as our hero becomes an anti-hero. But that's
okay because not every story ends happily ever after.