Young Goodman Brown

“Evil is the nature of mankind.”(Nathaniel Hawthorne). The story of “Young Goodman Brown” depicts what Hawthorne believes the nature of mankind is, which is evil. Goodman is a man of attempted good who comes face to face with the supposed inherent evil of humanity. He cannot realize, through any normal means, whether or not this awareness is something of his tormented mind, or based on something he stumbled upon while deep within dreary, haunted forests.

Faith who seems to be good appears not to be after Goodman sees her in the forest. Faith is Goodman’s wife. She was also young and she was beautiful. She had a lot of faith in God and her religion. In the beginning she didn't want Goodman to leave, but because she had faith in him she agreed. She seemed to be worshiping the devil and has gone to the dark side. At the end of the story she lost all her faith for Goodman. This shows how Hawthorne feels about evil in mankind and how it is in everyone and he thinks there is no good, not even in Faith.

Goodman believes himself to be alone in his journey down the trail the stranger tells him that it is a beaten path and has been taken even by his father. The world that has been built up around Goodman crumbles and with the first blow he is set up for more devastation into the world of the devil. By telling the story of a devil-worshiping town in Salem, which is already known for its witches, Hawthorne tries to get across his beliefs that in all of humanity there can and is evil.

Goodman was shocked by the discovery that the potential for evil resides in everybody. The rest of his life is destroyed because of his helplessness