A little heavy handed but still quite enjoyable to read. It has a wonderful sense of time and place. ( )

Puritan Goodman Brown goes off in the evening and leaves his pretty young wife at home. On the way, in the woods, Brown meets up with a man that looks like himself. They could be father and son. The older man caries a cane that looks like a serpent (Moses and the Egyptian magician’s and their canes that turn into serpents). Goodman resists the devil and is left alone in the woods. The reader watches Goodman as he experiences sounds and visions in the night of devil worship and in the morning he no longer trusts anyone. Well written short story of horror. Hawthorne examines the Puritan beliefs in the depravity of man and election. He uses names such as (Good)man Brown and Faith, Goody Cloyse. Read this because it is on NPR 100 Best Horror list. ( )

This story ended too quickly as most short stories do. Hawthorne transports his readers to Puritan times where the belief in witchcraft and devil-worshiping are real. He brings to life the feelings of not knowing who to trust, trying to determine who is a witch or who isn't, and what to do with the information of learning someone is a witch. For such a short story, Hawthorne fills the pages with images that makes the forests tangible and illicit a sympathetic response for Goodman Brown. For an assigned reading for a literature course, this was an enjoyable story worth reading. ( )

interesting ( )

For the first half of this, I felt it was a rather plodding allegory: a young man bids adieu to his wife Faith and goes to meet The Devil in the woods. However, the conclusion really twists it around and makes this an excellent piece. ( )