Faith is the core of any human heart and without strong faith people will ultimately become corrupt and fail. The corruptibility of the people is shown throughout the entire story with the loss of innocence. With the first two characters introduced both seem innocent as can be. In “Young Goodman Brown,” Hawthorne creates a fictional character who decides to meet the devil in the forest. Hawthorne uses Brown’s weakness in faith, loss of innocence, fear of the wilderness, and witchcraft to illustrate the corruptibility of Puritan society. The forest, dark and evil, represented the deceit and darkness of man’s heart. Just as Brown could not trust the shadows and figures he saw hidden in the forest, he could not trust his own desires. Those desires
