aves in its aftermath an abiding legacy of distrust (Martin 81).
The story is of a young man who insists on taking a journey through the woods on a dark night rather than remaining at home with his wife as she asks. She wants him to wait until the next day, for she is afraid to be alone on this particular night. The fact that this is a special night is emphasized several times. She says it, and he reiterates it when he states that "of all nights in the year" this is one in which he must make his journey. The couple has been married only three months. Their parting takes place in a way that bodes ill, and Brown blames himself as he leaves for the necessity of his being gone while his wife remains behind watching him from her room. She has mentioned that she has had troubled dreams, and dreams are a motif that will recur in this story and that signify a sort of entry into another world, a world of the unseen with which Brown will become familiar this night.
Claudia Johnson in fact emphasizes that Goodman Brown enters another world at twilight, enters this world as he takes leave of Faith. Her name is significant, as is his. He is both "young" and a "good man." Yet, he symbolically leaves his faith behind as he ventures innocently and foolishly into this other world at twilight, abandoning the world of warmth and home for the uncertainties of this journey. Hawthorne states that Faith "was aptly named," and yet that appellation will be tested by what her husband believes he sees on his journey. The fact that Hawthorne says she is aptly named, however, should help in deciding the meaning of what takes place. Johnson compares the main character in this story with the protagonist in another Hawthorne tale, "My Kinsman, Major Molineaux." She says that both young men enter other worlds in the twilight:
Both landscapes are externalizations of an inner hell, presided over by Satan. The important critical question in inter...