Writing about Fiction

Young Goodman Brown , Nathaniel Hawthorne 's tale about a young man 's journey to the woods to attend a midnight communion of devil worshippers , is an allegory replete with myths and symbols depicting the timeless struggle between good and evil . Overall , it is an allegory on the journey taken by humans through life , where he is made to choose between two paths : one that leads to righteousness , symbolized by the road that leads back to Faith , and the one that leads to damnation symbolized by the gloomy trail to the forest

In

this story , Young Goodman Brown undertakes a trip at sunset against his wife Faith 's wishes to the forest outside the village of Salem presumably the first ever of his clan to do so . In the forest he meets an older version of himself who guides him in his path . The young man is shocked to find that all of the persons he had known since childhood including his father and grandfather , the deacon , the pious woman Goody Cloyse who had taught him catechism , and the minister himself , whom he had thought to be godly persons are in fact in league with the devil He hesitates and decides to return to his wife , but upon discovering Faith was also in the forest , he too loses his resolve and plunges on toward the unholy altar . There he vacillates between joining the fiend-worshippers and urging Faith to resist . But all passes like a dream , and Young Goodman Brown wakes up the following morning to find that all had returned to normal . But the episode changes his life destroying his faith in his fellowmen , making him miserable to the end of his days

Faith , she of the pink ribbon , is a symbol of faith upon which Young Goodman Brown bases all his actions except that fateful trip to the woods . By brushing off her fears , the young man in effect shows how lightly he regards his own convictions , allowing himself easily to be led to temptation . The author seems to imply that one should not rely for his own salvation upon the holiness ' of others instead , one should cling to his own faith regardless of other people 's virtues or sins . In this story , the pink ribbon of Faith fluttering through the trees is a false symbol of that virtue : rather than be strengthened upon seeing it , Young Goodman Brown loses all hope . He has no resolve of his own : he promises himself at the outset that after such night in the forest , he would cling to [Faith 's] skirts and follow her to heaven The symbols of ribbons and skirts may also stand for a young man 's frequent obsession - the fleeting , alluring things of this world - which renders his faith hollow and easily discarded when a real test comes along

The staff with its serpentine head , like that lent by the owner to the Egyptian magi ' and that made from a maple branch that instantly turned into a dried...