ell as in himself, and he can’t look at anyone the same way. He has become a human embodiment of doubt because he refused to look at evil, and he is left with a moral uncertainty that is much worse than the actual evil itself. He isolates himself from everyone, including his wife, and “[a] stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful if not desperate man did he become from the night of that fearful dream”(319). He has lost faith in both senses of the word, and “he shrank from the bosom of Faith”(319). He shrinks from his own spirituality because he knows he has been required to face and acknowledge the evil in himself and others, and that frightens him more than anything else. His inability to judge between good and evil also prevents him from cuddling or accepting “faith,” and interacting with the other townspeople. He lived a long miserable life and died with “no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom”(319). His death was gloom because he didn’t know where he was going to end up, above or below his deathbed. Brown’s moral and social isolation is the worst possible evil that a man can ever have happen to him. If he would have looked at the evils in mankind, he could’ve recognized the good in people. That was the full intention of the dream, but he failed the test miserably....
