At the very beginning of Goodman Brown’s journey he said to himself,"What if the devil himself should be at my very elbow!" when he said this, he had no idea of how true it really was. How is a man to behave when he sees his entire religion collapsed before his eyes in just a single night? In the story of Young Goodman Brown (1835) it is demonstrated just how fragile public morality really is. This story follows Goodman Brown throughout his loss of faith. The reader does not know if his journey was simply a dream or if it was real. Either way, a darkness inside of him is revealed to himself that can not just go away.
At the beginning of the story our character leaves his new wife for the night to go and meet a man in the woods. This in itself is strange because he describes the woods as a place where no good can happen; this was a commonly held belief in this time period. Going into the woods past daylight was the first step in breaking down Brown’s faith in religion. The woods were seen as a place of darkness where “Indians” and “The Devil himself” could be hiding. As we find out later, he was exactly correct about the devil waiting for him. He is seen in the form of an older man, not unlike himself. The author probably did this to show that the devil is not unlike an …show more content…
The same is most likely true for his neighbors as we find out later. The community’s beliefs in religion are only as vigorous as they think their neighbors religious beliefs are. We start to see this collapse in the woods with Goodman Brown. At first, he hides from Goody Cloyse and Deacon Gookin when he sees them approaching in the woods. He does this so he can keep his assumed faith in good standing with a top member of his religious society. Later, realizes she was also greeting the same man he did and sees her faith is also not as strong as he had
At the beginning of the story our character leaves his new wife for the night to go and meet a man in the woods. This in itself is strange because he describes the woods as a place where no good can happen; this was a commonly held belief in this time period. Going into the woods past daylight was the first step in breaking down Brown’s faith in religion. The woods were seen as a place of darkness where “Indians” and “The Devil himself” could be hiding. As we find out later, he was exactly correct about the devil waiting for him. He is seen in the form of an older man, not unlike himself. The author probably did this to show that the devil is not unlike an …show more content…
The same is most likely true for his neighbors as we find out later. The community’s beliefs in religion are only as vigorous as they think their neighbors religious beliefs are. We start to see this collapse in the woods with Goodman Brown. At first, he hides from Goody Cloyse and Deacon Gookin when he sees them approaching in the woods. He does this so he can keep his assumed faith in good standing with a top member of his religious society. Later, realizes she was also greeting the same man he did and sees her faith is also not as strong as he had