“Young Goodman Brown”
...ark on, but he convinces himself that things will go back to normal when he comes back. He believes that even when tested, his faith will prevail so he decides to go. While traveling in the forest, Young Goodman Brown meets with his guide. He allows himself to be lead by this guide with a staff, “which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent,” even though he has reservations about what he is doing. When the devilish guide offers Young Goodman Brown his staff, he tells him that he has already done a bad thing by taking this journey with him and that he intends to leave with the same values and beliefs that he arrived with. He says this more to convince himself than his guide. As they get deeper into the forest, Young Goodman Brown starts to rethink his decision. "My father never went into the woods on such an errand, nor his father before him. We have been a race of honest men and good Christians since the days of the martyrs; and shall I be the first of the name of Brown that ever took this path and kept." The guide tells him that he is not the first to come on this journey, but Young Goodman Brown quickly dismisses this notion. He maintains his faith in his people and maintains that they have all kept a righteous path. They then see Goody Cloyse, the woman who introduced Young Goodman Brown to the ritualistic aspects of his religion, and a deacon from his church. Young Goodman Brown’s guide instructs him to get out of sight and observe. Young Goodman Brown is astonished by what he sees. The woman who had given him his spiritual tools was a fraud. After witnessing this hypocrisy, Young G...