![]() ![]() ![]() The devil might leap out “from behind a tree” at any moment, he fears. He cries out “Too far! Too far!.My father never went into the woods on such an errand.” Trees are symbols of sin, hiding spots for the devil and Indian “savages”: “here may be a devilish Indian behind every tree,” he worries aloud. Going into the woods means descending into the arms of the devil. When the devil tries to lure Goodman Brown deeper into the forest, Goodman Brown equates the forest with a break from his faithful legacy. ![]() Home is a safe harbor of faith, but the forest represents the home of evil and the devil himself, a place where “no church had ever been gathered or solitary Christian prayed.” The threshold Goodman Brown finds himself perched upon in the opening lines of the story is not just between himself and his wife, Faith, but between the safety of the town and the haunted realm of the forest into which he ventures. Hawthorne uses the forest to represent the wild fearful world of nature, which contrasts starkly with the pious orderly town of Salem. ![]()
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