How Does The Devil Affect Young Goodman Brown

While in the woods, Young Goodman Brown goes through many experiences with the devil. He gradually loses both his wife Faith, and his literal faith in God. YGB sees many seemingly righteous people from his life like Goody Cloyse, in deal with the devil. He is puzzled by the fact that some of the people who had taught him the very catechisms he believed would the devil's staff and turn to evil. Eventually, Young Goodman Brown begins to doubt his take rock solid faith by “doubting whether there really was a heaven above him” (Hawthorne, 4). He is then not able to pray because of a cloud directly overhead of him. Young Goodman Brown ultimately took the devil’s staff and turned demonlike. Though the experiences with the devil were powerful enough to affect Young Goodman Brown's reality, the entire experience was merely a dream to show him how flawed humanity is.

There is no possible way that a good Christian man could ever see and touch the devil in real life. When the devil threw his staff at Goody Cloyse, she disappeared into thin air, which could not happen in real life. It is pretty much impossible to go from worshipping God to worshipping the devil in one night. After the episode with the devil, everything went back to normal. The only person that was affected by the events of the previous night was Young Goodman Brown. The morning after, “Old Deacon Gookin was at domestic worship” adn “Goody Cloyse, that excellent old Christian, stood in the early sunshine at her own lattice, catechizing a little girl” (Hawthorne, 7). If he was the only person who knew anything about it, there is a good chance it was just a very realistic dream specifically designed to teach him a