Influence Of Evil In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

In the short story, “ Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the main character Goodman Brown changes throughout the story by falling under the influence of evil giving him a different doubtful perception of his life, his core beliefs, and everyone he has ever known. Goodman Brown begins his journey by meeting a man of evil that guides him down his journey of the unknown and evil darkness. Goodman Brown appears to be a religious man with strong beliefs in what he has learned his whole life about being good and making the right choices. He is introduced to this strange shady many early in the story, and as he continually attempts to elude this devil like man he simply cannot resist continuing of this path because of his wise and cunning

“Can this be so! cried Goodman Brown, with a stare of amazement at his undisturbed companion” (307). This shows that Goodman is impressed by the fact that this devil has connection with people in his community and provides him with another reason to continue walking on this journey. This can also infer that the devil had relationships with his family and also may have poorly influenced them without them ever knowing. This explain in a way that there is evil in everyone because they can not always tell the right from the wrong. Although young naive Goodman has many doubts about being in this dark and evil forest he continues along as the devil pushes him in further by playing mind games with him. “I had rather miss an ordination dinner than tonight’s meeting” (310). Goodman overheard this talk from Deacon Gookin and how his religious beliefs are completely under attack because he does not understand why it appears that everyone he has ever known has this secretive dark side to them. This is extremely important because the reader is now starting to see Goodman