In a normal dawn, a young man called Goodman Brown leaves his home and wife, then heads to the

forest. He meets and walks with an old traveller with a snake-like staff after he enters the forest. On the way,
Goodman brown regrets on his decision, so the old traveller leaves him behind. On the concern of Browns
wife, Faith, he continues his way into the forest. An evil witchcraft meeting is holding deep in the forest, while
Goodman finds out that Faith also attends this meeting. After a prayer from Goodman Brown, everything
vanishes, then he returns to the village with negative perspective toward everyone in the town till the last
moment of his life.
Nathaniel Hawthorne uses allusion of Christianity in Young Goodman Brown to illustrate the
religious effect on ethic of people. Life and personality of followers is largely based on the religion due to their
strong belief in the religious creed. Personal ethic, as a subjective perspective, also can be influenced by
religion by a large amount. On the way heading to the witchcraft meeting, Goodman says:We have been a race
of honest men and good Christians, since the days of the martyrs. And shall I be the first of the name of Brown,
that ever took this path and kept--. In his words, he mentions that he and his whole family are good
Christians. He starts to hesitates the decision of attends the witchcraft meeting. Later on, The young man sat a
few moments by the road-side, applauding himself greatly,and thinking with how clear a conscience he should
meet the minister, in his morning-walk, nor shrink from the eye of good old Deacon Gookin. Brown decides to
absent the meeting, so he will no longer suffer the feeling of guilty. Because witchcraft is prohibited by
Christianity, the decision of Goodman Brown proves that the effect of religion have influenced his perspective.
A marvel, truly, that Goody Cloyse should be so far in the wilderness, at night-fall!, and that he recognized
the voices of the minister and Deacon Gookin, jogging along quietly...said the voice like the deacon's, I had
rather miss an ordination-dinner than tonight's meeting. In Goodman Browns life, there are three Christian
moral and spiritual advisers, minister, Deacon Gookin, and Goody Cloyse. All of these three advisers who
should be against the witchcraft meeting are heading to the meeting, so Goodman start to doubting whether
there really was a Heaven above him. The ethic which taught by Christianity starts to fall apart inside
Goodman. As a result, he turns into a madman. Look Up to Heaven, and resist the wicked one Even still, he
believe in heaven, and keep pray to it.
Witchcraft are a very interesting part of the western religious history, and the power of witchcraft are
very strong according to the unproven records. Although there is not enough evidence to prove the existence of
witchcraft in real life, but I believe it do exist in this short story.What I believe is Goodman did attend the
meeting. The details given in the story clearly highlight that this experience are not a dream. At the end, the
author wrote, Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest, and only dreamed a wild dream of a witch-
meeting?, it seems like the author even try to confuse the reader by bring up the point of it is just a dream.
It is a common sense that dream are rarely remembered by people, even sometime we do remember dreams,
they mostly appear in the form of fragment which consist of only a few scene of the dream. So, Pieces of
memories are easily forgotten by people, so dreams will be never be a life changing event. Goodman Brown
would not changed to A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man and being
gloom until the last moment of his life just because of a dream which most likely to be appeared as pieces or
fragments of a few scenes. Also, Goodman is a very loyal follower, a dream about witchcraft would only make
him feel guilty for his impure belief and thought, instead of believed other prayer as the blasphemer and
afraid of curse when sitting with those people. Such strong change in perspective may appear when Goodman
really being a part of the meeting, rather than just having unclear dream. More than the power of dream, the
information in this story are not fitting requirements of dream. Dream builds on past memory and knowledge of
people, it will never go beyond to things which people do not know. Some information like Goodmans father
and grandfather can be explain by Goodman heard his father talking about those things, but the recipe of
Goody Cloyse and people who also attend the meeting like lady of governor are either too private to know by
Goodman or too far from his life. The reason is that Goodman is just an ordinary peasant and good Christian,
Goodman shouldnt know details of these things based on my recognition on his social circle, especially in such
specific way. Lastly, Faith also provided evidence for my argument. In this beginning of the short story, Faith
said: Pray, tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year! It seems like Faith knew this night
is a very important night, otherwise she wouldnt asked for only this night in the year. In another hand, if this
whole story is a dream of Goodman, just like what author said, it will make no sense for Goodman to enter the
forest in night. Goodman knew that he was going for a evil purpose which would kill Faith to think it. Then,
with such intense task, how can Goodman sleep in the place where he completed his evil task? Undoubtedly,
the power of witchcraft is very strong by both unproven real world record and the story. It might not be a
problem for witches to solve the problem like Goodman Brown, such as clear the memories of everyone who
attend the meeting or let Goodman fall into a life-long dream.