"Young Goodman Brown"

2. How is the allegorical? What statement does Hawthorne appear to be making with his allegorical tale about human nature?

When I first read the story I took it very literally. I understood it that Goodman Brown was being taken to the forest by a friend and happened upon people he knew and they were all going to the same meeting place. The people he saw along the way were well known religious and political people from his town. At the meeting they were converting people to do evil and it was revealed that much evil had already been done, women killing their husbands. Then Goodman Brown is converted but wishes his wife to remain pure. Then he wakes up somewhere else. After reading the Major Images Found in Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" the story made much more sense as an allegory. The man leading Goodman Brown through the forest was the devil, who also resembles his father. While walking down the road they come across different people and Goodman Brown hides in the trees because he doesn't want people to know what he is doing. All the people he sees along the way and at the meeting were people who had done evil things. The reason Hawthorne shows pious people as having done evil things is that all people have evil in their nature, people are not inherently good.