The Evil behind Young Goodman Brown.
... in order to alleviate Goodman’s curiosity and they both head towards the ceremonial center of the prevailing evil sentiment surrounding the forest. As they both travel together they run into more and more of Goodman’s fellow townsmen, he even sees upstanding citizens and members of the clergy that would never be associated with such malevolence and sin. Goodman hides away in order not to be seen by everyone and he slowly creeps up onto the ceremonial epicenter where he is confronted with the horror of seeing his wife partaking in the sinful behavior. At the site of the meeting, he suffers a terrible shock after he discovers his wife, the innocent Faith there. When a “Shape of Evil” prepares to baptize the newcomers into “the mystery of sin,” Goodman Brown tells his wife: “Look up to Heaven, and resist the Wicked One” (Hawthorne 100). As soon as those words pass his lips, he finds himself alone in the forest with only the sound of the wind for company. The next day, after he returns to Salem, life goes on as usual, and Brown wonders whether he has dreamt the entire ordeal. Whatever the case, Hawthorne isn’t clear about the reality of the situation, Goodman Brown is never the same again; he becomes “a stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man” (100). After he dies many years later, he is followed to his grave by Faith, by his children, by his grandchildren, and by neighbors, but “they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone; for his dying hour was gloom” (100). There are several themes that enclose the story, the hypocrisy of the puritan beliefs, the constant struggle between good and evil, and the mental anguish that is caused when an individual realizes that there is no clear-cut difference between morality and immorality. All of the themes, however, pertain to the inner conflict that every person has to deal with as they grow up and lose the luxury of infantile naivety. Goodman begins his journey as a curious and hopeful young man who seeks nothing more than an a little excitement from the understanding of the “evil” presences that surround life. Similar to that of Adam and Eve’s enlightment, Goodman soon realizes that the knowledge has stained his soul for the remainder of his life. He leaves the forest a disillusioned spirit filled with constant doubt and remorse, significant of how many people feel when the mature into adults in society. The reader is taken through the spiritual awakenening of the young Goodman, which Hawthorne portrays negativ...