“Young Goodman Brown” "Young Goodman Brown", by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a moralizing story. Hawthorneshows us the great importance of our faith in God, our family and friends, and at length ourselves. The plight of Goodman Brown indicates that without our “faith” we are unable to live life to thefullest possible extent. Faith is our key to happiness."Young Goodman Brown" begins with Goodman Brown about to depart for an “errand”that will take the evening. Faith, Brown's wife, asks him not to go, the feeling she has is not agood one. Goodman Brown says to his "love and Faith", "this one night I must tarry away fromthee." When he says his "love" and "Faith", he is talking to his wife, but he is also speaking of hisfaith in God. It is ultimately revealed that this so-called “errand” Brown is on is to encounter theDevil. By doing so, he leaves his unquestionable faith in God back in Salem along with his lovingwife. He resolves that he will "cling to her skirts and follow her to Heaven." This shows howconfident he is, that no matter what occurs on this night everything will be fine. The irony to thispromise is that when Goodman Brown comes back at dawn, he can no longer look at his wife, oranyone for that matter, with the same faith he had before. One of the individuals Brown encountered on his journey had with him a staff that "borethe likeness of a great black snake". The staff which looked like a snake is a reference to thesnake in the story of Adam and Eve. The snake led Adam and Eve to their demise by trickingthem into eating the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. The Adam and Eve story is similar toGoodman Brown in that they are both in search of something. Once Eve ate from the Tree ofKnowledge they were expelled from their paradise. The Devil's staff eventually leads GoodmanBrown to the Devil's ceremony which destroys Goodman Brown's faith in his fellow man, thusdisrupti...
