Story: "Young Goodman Brown"

Nathaniel Hawthorne's story "Young Goodman Brown" is set in the forest outside of an early American town, late at night. Young Goodman Brown has come from the town for reasons left unsaid to meet with a man whose identity is only implied so that he can be welcomed into a community that is somehow, it is implied, evil. Brown is torn by the conflict between his unexplained reasons for damning himself in communion with Satan on the one hand, and, on the other, thoughts of Faith, his loving and good companion (and who favors pink ribbons). Seeing so many members of his town assembled at the communion ceremony, though, and seeming to catch a glimpse of even his beloved Faith at the wicked gathering, Goodman Brown cries out, "Not Faith!" He awakes the next day full of a deep pessimism and even paranoia that all of his fellow townsmen, and even his wife Faith, are damned hypocrites -- to the end of his days, his disappointment and bitterness are his only signs of salvation.