Appearance Vs. Reality In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

In the short story “Young Goodman Brown” we are met with the challenge of determining appearance vs. reality. Throughout the story Brown faces many things he does not know to be true or false. Some of these are the symbol of the woods, plot of the meeting in the woods, and the character of the townspeople. Brown first leaves his home and wife Faith to meet a fellow traveler in the woods. As Brown starts towards the woods his mind is plagued with thoughts of his faith and heaven and getting back to his wife. “It was lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveller knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that, with lonely footsteps, he may yet be passing
“The next morning, Goodman Brown came slowly into the street of Salem village, staring around him like a bewildered man.” Unable to tell if last night was a dream, Brown wanders around town. Everyone is acting like it is business as usual. The minister is walking around getting ready for the sermon, Deacon Gookin is in regular worship, and Goody Cory, the witch from the woods, is teaching catechism. Everyone is acting the same as before, but now all Brown can think about when he sees the townspeople is the possible evil inside them. Because of this Brown became “A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man did he become, from the night of that fearful dream” (Hawthorne 207). While we can only infer that Goodman Brown had depicted appearance vs. reality on his own, we can tell he never full heartedly trusted anyone ever again. The walk in the woods symbolizes his walking away from his faith and into the arms of the devil. The meeting in the woods reveals to Brown that not everyone is who they say they are. The townspeople never showed signs of the meeting or their inner evil. Goodman Brown lived out the rest of his life in gloom and never trusted