Plot: The Most Important Element Term Paper

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1272).

The plot itself consists of a symbolic journey unto the Puritan heart of darkness, a place of communion with the devil himself, which, as it turns out, is only a dream. Nevertheless, the dream material clearly traumatizes Young Goodman Brown as much as if the evil trip into the forest, where in the dream, he even meets his wife Faith (" My Faith is gone!'" (p. 1269), he cries in despair, into the darkness, seizing one of his wife's symbolic pink ribbons from the branch of a tree) had happened to him in real life.

Within his frightening dream, Young Goodman Brown, reluctant yet somehow determined, sets out, near sunset, on a journey into the forest, from which his new young wife with pretty pink ribbons in her hair, "My love and my Faith'" (p. 1264) tries in vain to keep him back. This is not just for purposes of companionship, Faith is also troubled by her own thoughts and dreams, especially when alone, foreshadowing of how she, too, will find it impossible to resist the lure of the forest.

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The man Young Goodman Brown meets, at the start of his journey deep into the forest, carries a walking stick with a serpent's head. He, and it, symbolically represent the devil. Along the way, they meet Goody Cloyse, who had taught Young Goodman Brown his catechism, and other venerable individuals Young Goodman Brown would never expect to see in such a place. It is when he sees his wife there as well, though, that is when Young Goodman Brown loses all faith, in both senses of that word, as deliberately intended by Hawthorne. Moreover, later, once Young Goodman Brown awakens, his faith is gone for good.

Clearly, the plot of "Young Goodman Brown cannot" exist separately from setting, characterization, tone, or theme, each of which plays a very important role the story as a whole. However, it is the compelling, unusual, and deeply symbolic plot of "Young Goodman Brown," rather than any other single element, that makes this story the allegorical masterpiece that it is.

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