Allegory In Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

What is real and what is fantasy isn’t always clear to determine, especially in literature. Sometimes the line between fact and fiction isn’t clear in pieces of works. One story in particular that embodies this blurred line, a short story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne titled “Young Goodman Brown”. This story depicts a faithful man discovering the flaws of his religion making him lose his faith. The setting and events that occur in the story are od and many believe the story to be one big nightmare and others believe that some aspects of the story are true and some are just a dream sequence. Hawthorne heavily uses allegory in his writing which can be clearly seen in “Young Goodman Brown”. Nathaniel Hawthorne doesn’t give a definitive
It is revealed that his family history isn’t so holy after all and that he’s been living a lie this whole time (Balcarcel). The fact the man also looked similar to him gives a hint that it might be dream since little error or coincidences in dreams are common. I don’t believe that it’s a dream, I believe that the beginning of the story happened. Not a lot is known of Goodman Brown like his profession or intention of leaving at night but everything that happened in the beginning can be explained. Goodman Brown"s dream can be analyzed to understand what Hawthorne is portraying in the story. The dream is set in the woods because they are very dark and easy to get lost in, as Goodman Brown is facing his own internal darkness and losing his faith. As he walks further into the woods, he is actually going further into his mind. Each character he encounters is of the utmost religious faith. When he sees them at the witch meeting, he is trying to validate in his mind his own lack of religious faith. As he walked through the forest with the dark stranger, who bore a striking resemblance to his father, Brown had to confront that maybe all in his world was not as it appeared to be. Every person that he had a high regard for was challenged on