Actually, I don't think there is sufficient evidence from
the text to argue that Goodman Brown actually believes the dream to be true. I think it
is clear that if we read the text, we are not actually told if what Goodman Brown saw
was real or not. What is clear though, is that seeing what he saw impacts Goodman Brown
for the worse, and changes him from that point forward. Let us note the way that the
vision ends:
readability="12">Whether Faith obeyed he knew not. Hardly had he
spoken when he found himself amid calm night and solitude, listening to a roar of the
wind which died havily away through the forest. He staggered against the rock and felt
it chill and damp, while a hanging twig, which had been all on fire, besprinkled his
cheek with the coldest
dew.It is thus left
deliberately vague whether Goodman Brown experienced a dream from which he suddenly
awoke, or whether he experienced reality and then was transported away from it. The text
deliberately tantalises us with both possibilities. Note the way that the narrator
rather cheekily asks us the following question:readability="6">Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest,
and only dreamed a wild dream of a
witch-meeting?This question
is never answered, but the way in which Goodman Brown's life is changed by what he
witnessed and the way that it obviously showed him that evil is present in all of us is
explored in great detail. What he saw, fact or fiction, was enough to profoundly
challenge his belief in the goodness of humanity, leaving him a joyless
man.
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