Young Goodman Brown is a holy man, with a repressed wish inside of him to explore the unknown. This wish came to him through a dream and changed the rest of his life dramatically. The story "Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne shows us the possible outcomes of Young Goodman Brown's decision to explore into the forest to find the unknown. Hawthorne also uses symbols in the story to represent good and evil. It is a story about a man whose true identity prevailed and destroys him from the inside out.

In the story Hawthorne uses people and objects as symbolic figures. The most symbolic roles in the story are Young Goodman Brown and his wife Faith. Both of the characters' names are symbolic and representative of who they truly are.

Young Goodman Brown is a good man. (Hence his name). He is a young man, who is...