Young Goodman Brown"Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a dark story written in the form of an allegory. In the story, Brown believed his community to be true in its devotion to God. Additionally, Brown believed he had a strong Puritan faith. However, the journey we took, through the dark and gloomy woods of Salem, showed the reader that Brown was not as strong in his faith as he thought. Furthermore, the respectable people of the town were not who Brown thought they were. Brown was faced with temptation, in which he would have several chances to turn back, but his curiosity ultimately got the better of him. “Young Goodman Brown” is a story depicting people facing daily temptations. Nathaniel Hawthorne used setting, internal conflict, and symbolism to depict the struggle between Brown's sense of uncertainty and the evil that tries to attract him. Depending on how the story is seen, two settings can be considered. The first setting would be Brown's house and the second setting would be the forest. The first setting took place in 1692, during the time of the Salem Witch Trials in Salem, Massachusetts, at the home of young Goodman Brown. The decor of Brown's house doesn't have much description. The only thing depicted was the threshold where Brown leaned his head back to say goodbye to his wife. The scene at Brown's house could be seen as symbolizing his insecurities about his submission to the evil ways of the devil. Despite Brown's undecided conscience whether to make the journey or not, Brown submitted to his impulse to follow an evil path and embarked on his journey into the woods. The path in the woods, where the second setting takes place...... middle of paper ......n dies, his wife Faith, his children and his grandchildren all followed his body until the grave, but “they carved no hopeful verse on his tombstone; for his hour of death was dark” (Hawthorne 273). In conclusion, Brown struggled with his faith, struggled to overcome his apprehensions within himself, and realized that respectable people can fall into the hands of wickedness. Throughout the story, the slow decline of Brown's faith has been accompanied by each new realization that his world is not as healthy as he had once thought. Ultimately, Brown's faith is not his devotion to Christianity, but his faith in humanity, and losing it, he is doomed to endless isolation. Works Cited Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Norton Introduction to Literature. 9th. New York: WW Norton & Company, Inc... 2005: 264-273.