Nathaniel Hawthorne's somewhat uncomfortable heritage as descendant
of the strictest Puritans is evident in his excellent allegorical short
story "Young Goodman Brown." The purpose of his story is to portray the way
in which religious piety itself may become a sort of devilry, and that even
one who perceives himself to have escaped the snares of the devil may in
his judgmental piety be doing the very work of the evil one. The story is
simple enough: a faithful young Puritan is tempted by the devil, and
agrees to meet him in the woods but refuses to go to far with him, until
one by one he sees how everyone he respected as a spiritual leader has
already fallen to evil, at which point he wavers, and then finally rejects
Satan. Yet on returning to the real world, he carries with him the
perception of all his fellows as having sold themselves to Satan, and this
poisons all his relationships and makes him unable to worship among them.
Thus Hawthorne's purpose is fulfilled, in that he has shown how even in
piety (rejecting the devil) a man may fall into doing the devil's will by
turning against the church and his fellow man. "On the Sabbath-day, when
the congregation were singing a holy psalm, he could not listen, because an
anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear, and drowned all the blessed
strain." (Hawthorne) Hawthorne's purpose to show the devilry of piety is
carried out through the allegory of the three main parts of his plot, the
temptation of going into the archetypical dark forest, the disillusionment
which occurs when Brown looses respect for his elders and fellows, and the
terrible God-defying pride and bitterness which accrues when at the end
Brown thinks himself to be the last holy man in Salem.
In the beginning, Brown allegorically represents an innocent young
soul who is facing real temptation for the first time and is willing to
entertain the ideas even if he...