d approaches the congregation “with whom he felt a loathful brotherhood by the sympathy of all that was wicked in his heart”(317). Brown knows he shouldn’t join the congregation, but he feels a kinship with them. The warmth of the fire is familiar association, opposed to the coldness of his isolation in the forest. Brown thinks he sees his own father encouraging him into the evils of manhood. Brown also sees a figure resembling his mother who “threw out her hand to warn him back” because she wants him to stay a child who is nave of the existence of evil and sin (317). Brown saw them, “[b]ut he had no power to retreat one step, nor to resist, even in thought,” and he is led to the altar (317). The devil shows Brown his wife, Faith, standing before him and he says, “[d]epending upon one another’s hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness”(318). The devil is telling them that virtue, or good, is just a dream, and evil is the reality of humankind. The devil prepares to baptize them into this reality of evil together, and Brown realizes that he will see the evil nature of his pure Faith. He shudders at the mere thought of Faith being able to see that he contains evil and secret deeds. Brown then cries to her, “look up to heaven, and resist the wicked one”(318). Brown makes his final decision to not look upon the evils in himself or anyone else when he looks up at the sky, but “[w]hether or Faith obeyed he knew not”(318).Brown wakes up in the forest and returns to Salem “ a bewildered man,” and he shrinks away from everyone that he passes, including his wife, Faith (318). Brown knows the whole experience was a dream, but “it was a dream of evil omen for Young Goodman Brown”(319). He lost his faith in other people as w...
