14). Brown in his dreamlike state creates a world where his everyday friends and family are evil, deceitful, and led by the devil (i.e. the stranger) in satanic worships. Thomas Walsh writes of the “The Black Man” as an “Objectification of the dark side” and further states “the characters Brown meets in the forest are the embodiment of his own thoughts” (114).Tritt’s counterpart Claudia Johnson describes “the hellish landscape through which [Brown] travels” as a “hellish externalization of his own heart” (114). Therefore, the reader can conclude that Brown has created this new landscape by projection (a defense mechanism of Freud’s) of his own thoughts. This world is also created as a way for Brown to let the audience see how the public would view his actions and feelings.The last episode of significance is the assembly of the “evil church.” Goodman Brown follows through the forest until he comes upon the “devil” and his followers deep in the forest. The “grave and dark-clad company” were gathered around a fire near a pulpit or altar of some kind. The significance lies within the people gathered at the assembly. Not only was the stranger speaking from the pulpit with multiple signs of witchcraft and evil surrounding him, but also around the circle stood:“faces that would be seen next day at the council board of the providence, and others which, Sabbath after Sabbath, looked devoutly heavenward, and benignantly over the crowded pews, from the holiest pulpits in the land.Again, Brown has located his own self-perceived sin and evil in others. Finally, the presentation of Faith to the evil group is a final episode of corruption. After Brown caught her ribbons in the forest, he knew she had succumbed to evil. At the climax of the meeting, Brown yells at Faith to “look towards heaven” and escape the evil, the...
