Faith in Young Goodman Brown For those who have not studied the Puritans or their beliefs, Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" is little more than 'a story of lost (or perhaps just confused) people. ) faith. Hawthone, a man of Puritan origins, had some opposition to the ideals followed by the Puritans. Some of these ideals are discussed in his "Young Goodman Brown." Most people's basic impression of the Puritans "portrays them as austere, irascible, self-righteous, hypocritical people who hated sex, joy, and life." They dressed in black. , they hated nature, they burned witches and they repressed all natural desires. This is the view that influences most people when the Puritans appear in literature. We see the stereotypical hatred of the forest (the devil's playground), fear of the Indians (the devil's spawn), and extreme fear of the devil himself run rampant in "Young Goodman Brown." Hawthorne's description of the forest is very discouraging. "He had taken a dreary path, darkened by all the darkest trees of the forest..." (p 375) This is a rather depressing and f...... middle of paper ...... do not invoke it blindly. However, after digging a little deeper, the story is not only about faith and its dangers, but also about the flaws of the Puritan system.1.) Roberts, Trish. Background of the American Puritans. http://www.missouri.edu/~engpat/purs.html. (accessed 2-1-02)2.) Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "Young Goodman Brown". printed in: A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature: Fourth Edition. Editors Wilfred L. Guerin, Earle Labor, Lee Morgan, Jeanne C. Reesman, John R. Willingham. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 1999.