Evil In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

Hawthorne spent most of his childhood alone reading or writing – his dad died early and he barely stayed connected to his mother – and “developing an intensely introspective nature, and eventually coming to believe that the misfortunes of his immediate family were the results of divine retribution for the sins of his ancestors” (Hawthorne). Since his ancestors’ – Justice John Hathorne who was a judge during the Salem Witch Trials in 1692 and Major William Hathorne who persecuted Quakers – past or sins were bothering him, Hawthorne added “w” in his last name. Hawthorne’s “majority of short stories are allegorical in nature” (Hawthorne). In his short story “Young Goodman Brown,” Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbols to show a man’s allegorical walk towards evil.
Romantic Period includes “fascination with the supernatural, a reverence for nature, and idealization of women” (Lorcher). “Young Goodman Brown” deals with all of those characteristics. The story is a journey of a man through the dark forest and the darkness within the man itself. The story includes witch concepts, forest, and women who fail to become ideal women. The allegorical interpretation of "Young Goodman Brown" involves the loss of innocence. Brown is astonished when he discovers that even the righteous among him have given in to temptation at the end; “this discovery is a trial of one's faith, a trial that Brown ostensibly fails”