Young Goodman Brown

Summary

Brown leaves town to go to a meeting. He travels through a dark forest. An unnamed figure meets him and walks with him to the meeting. Brown rests several times, saying to his companion that he is going to turn back. The man goads Brown to keep his path. The mysterious man is revealed to be the devil. Brown experiences several hallucinations before he arrives at the meeting. There is a scene of fire accompanied by the heathens and the holy. Brown recognizes a majority of the crowd gathered. The devil speaks briefly before this entire episode is revealed to be a dream. The next day in town Goodman looks at people he has known for a very long time in a different manner. He is paranoid. The story flashes forward to several generations beyond his death. This "dream" altered his destiny.

Comment

The wording of this story made it difficult to get the nuances, while the general plot remained fairly clear. Young Goodman Brown is exactly what his name implies. He keeps the "Faith" until he is literally possesed by the Dark. Even after this change, He is hesitant to fully embrace the change in thought. This vision is life changing and simply too overwhelming for Brown. He can not take it for what it is; a dream. His changed understanding of the world inhibits his ability to act as he did before the vision. His struggle was for his sanity, and he lost.