Beginning of Essay
Ld be at my very elbow" symbolizes that the forest is a mysterious and frightful place (244). With the words, "staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake" (244) and "The moment his fingers touched them, they became strangely withered and dried up as w ....

Middle of Essay
.... black snake" (244) and "The moment his fingers touched them, they became strangely withered and dried up, as with a week’s sunshine" (246) symbolizes the hellish powers of the devil. Young Goodman Brown plays the middle man within the story. He is married to a beautiful wife and is urged to become bad in the hellish forest. He also finds that his religion teacher, Goody Cloyse, and the church minister, Deacon Gookin, was in this forest. Young Goodman Brown faces an internal conflict with good and evil. Hawthorne writes, "With Heaven above, and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the devil" lets you know that Young Goodman Brown is ....