Goodman Brown
...has a bout with his own faith. He ends up losing this battle because of the wickedness in everyone else's hearts. He begins by wanting to be the evil one, then progresses to be the faithful one as the night in the woods goes on. His name has a lot to do with the character in the story. The "Young" in his name is to symbolize innocence, and "GOODMAN" is pretty self-explanatory. He goes off in to the woods and comes with a lost faith in everyone else in the town.
Goodman Brown decides he wants to go off into the woods for one last night of evilness before married life really kicked in. He says, "What a wretch am I, to leave her on such an errand!Â…Well; she's a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night, I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven." Goodman's father and grandfather were devout Christians. They knew that the evils of the real world hid in the forest, as did Goodman. But he still went in! He let this man with the serpent staff keep him from turning around, and getting out of the woods. On page 274 the evil man says, "We are but a little way in the forest, yet." Goodman responds, "Too far, too far," but didn't realize he was still walking farther into the woods! He says he has walked too far into the woods, but is still going! He is being overtaken by the evilness of the woods.
Just when I thought he was turned to the evil side, Goodman sees his wife's hair-ties. This is where he starts to turn back to the good side of life. On page 277, Goodman says, "Come witch, come wizard, come Indian powwow, come devil himself! and here comes Goodman Brown. You may as well fear him as he fear you!" This is where Goodman turns back to the good side, when he finds out the devil is consuming his Faith. When Goodman and Faith are on the evil altar, Goodman says, "Faith! Faith! Look up to Heaven, and resist the Wicked One!" Obviously Faith was evil-hearted...
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