Young Goodman Brown’s spiritual journey is a quality of Romantic literature. His escape from civilization into the forest is one example of this quality, but his return to the village is more revealing of the impact that the experience has had on Brown: “The withdrawal and gloom that envelop him after his return to the village come about not because he has yielded to the overwhelming vision of evil in the forest, but because he has repressed it,” (Levy 119). Another example of this quality is Brown’s escape from reality. When Brown seems to go mad at the vision of losing his wife, the unusual aspects of his rage hint that Brown has somehow escaped the reality of normal life: “And maddened with despair, so that he laughed loud and long, did
