"Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorn

Goodman's Loss of Faith
Nathaniel Hawthorn's short story, "Young Goodman Brown" is allegorical; the characters and objects in the story represent abstract ideas. The evil in Brown's world is frequently represented by some object, person, or event in the short story. The symbols of evil guide the story along and show the reader how Brown loses his faith. Hawthorn uses symbolism to illustrate the story of a young man who reluctantly departs from his world of innocence to realize the widespread evil that exists within his world.
In the beginning of the story, Hawthorne uses the names of the characters as symbols that show Brown's initial innocence, soon to be abandoned. The first two characters introduced in the story are Young Goodman Brown, and his wife, Faith. …