Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Short summary

5 seconds

Goodman Brown happens to be at a ceremony where all the townspeople are gathered, including his wife. The next morning, he’s not sure if it was real.

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Goodman Brown leaves his wife Faith, insisting on urgent business, and heads into the woods. There he meets an elderly man dressed in similar clothes and looking just like himself. Deeper into the woods they meet Goody Cloyes, an older woman whom young Goodman knew as a boy; she taught him catechism.

Other people inhabit the forest that night, and they move in the same direction as Goodman. Soon, at midnight, he stumbles into a clearing where all the townspeople have gathered. The new minions, Goodman Brown and Faith, appear at the ceremony, which is held at the flame-drenched altar of rocks. The young man urges his wife to resist, and momentarily the scene fades away.

Arriving home the next morning, Goodman Brown is unsure whether the events of the previous night were reality or a dream, but he is deeply shaken, and his faith in the Christian community is distorted. He loses faith in his wife as well as in all of humanity. Goodman lives his life as an embittered and suspicious cynic, wary of everyone around him.