Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Characters

Young Goodman Brown: He is a young man from Salem and a descendant from many Puritan ancestors. He is a devote Christian.

Faith: she is Brown`s young wife. 

The Devil: He first appears as a mysterious man that carries a serpent shaped scepter. He was close friends with Goodman`s father and grandfather.

Goody Cloyse: She was Goodman Brown`s catechism teacher.

The minister: He is a Puritan highly respected by Goodman Brown.

Deacon Gookin: He is a Puritan highly respected by Brown.

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Plot Elements

Exposition: Goodman Brown is going on a journey to meet up with a man for business purposes. When he is about to leave his house her wife Faith doesn’t want him to go, but he goes anyway.

Rising Action: Brown meets up with a Mysterious man in a haunted-like forest who carries a scepter and claims that he was close friends Goodman Brown`s father and grandfather. Brown decides not to trust the strange man and refuses to continue walking so he turns back home. Before Brown turns back, he sees Goody Cloyse, his catechism teacher, talking to the Mysterious man which revealed himself as the Devil.

Climax:When Goodman Brown is heading towards home, he is caught up in a diabolic conversion ritual. He finds himself alongside his wife Faith, his dead father, the church`s minister, besides many other religious people. 

Resolution: Brown ends up resisting the Devil`s temptation and runs back home. When he returns to Salem, he becomes distrustful of everyone and he even avoided blessings even though everything is back to normal.    

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Summary:

This story is about a young man, Goodman Brown. He was a pious man who lived with his wife Faith in Salem. One night he is invited to meet up with a stranger in the forest, however this experience changed his life forever. The Mysterious man he had a meeting with turned out to be the devil himself, and he shows him all the bad things that people from his family and congregation had committed. After that he is present in some kind of ritual, not knowing if it was an illusion or something real, he manages to escape and goes back to town, but he realizes he had changed, and he is no longer the same person, because he had lost trust in people around him.

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Analysis and Feelings

I didn’t quite like the story, because it was about a good man tempted by the devil, but at the same time it shows the hypocrisy of some people in the world that have two faces. Sometimes they pretend to be someone in front of others, and they do terrible things when no one is watching. I think Goodman Brown was indeed an innocent man who used to have good opinion of others, but this experience changed him and made him distrustful of people.
I think the author exaggerates a little bit, but it is to prove his point that one never gets to know the other persons and that there is evil roaming inside them.