In Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," what foreshadows Goodman Brown's meeting with his fellow traveler? How does the reader know Brown is keeping an...

As Hawthornes
story opens, the reader sees Goodman Brown departing his home to go into the forest on his
errand. The conversation that Goodman Brown and his wife, Faith, have merely expresses her
regret that he has to leave when he does. It is not until Goodman Brown, having departed his
home and heading through town, looks back at his wife still standing in their doorway. Seeing
her standing there, Goodman Brown reflects on their conversation and surmises a sense of
foreboding in her face; she thinks there will be trouble that night. Fearing this, she tries to
convince him to delay his departure until the following morning.

s
interpretation of his wifes words does not foreshadow the particular nature of what will come to
pass but simply foreshadows that something will happen. Goodman Brown already knows that his
errand serves an evil purpose. Brown takes a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees
of the forest, which serves to emphasize the evil purpose of his adventure. As he sees the
forest around the path close in behind him, Brown makes a rather prophetic statement: What if
the devil himself should be at my very elbow! This statement clearly foreshadows his meeting
with the devil, for immediately after uttering this phrase Brown walks around the crook on the
path and sees the figure before him. The figure greets him as if he had been expecting
him.

While the words of Faith and those of Goodman Brown himself clearly
foreshadow the nature of his meeting with the mysterious figure in the forest, very little
evidence suggests the supernatural nature of the figure. The figure himself does not give Brown
cause to wonder whether he is supernatural; however, the staff the figure carries with him is
another story. Brown notices something interesting about the staff. Its shape and construction
make it almost appear that it could be wrought from a black serpent. When the figure and Goodman
Brown begin reasoning, both characters make allusions to the unnatural age of the mysterious
figure, suggesting that he is old enough to have helped Browns grandfather whip a Quaker woman
and set fire to an Indian village during King Philips War, all while the figure appears to only
be about fifty years in age. Evidence for the figures supernatural nature lies not in his overt
acts of trickery or sorcery but in his words, in the allusions he makes to religious practices,
and to allusions he makes as to his unnatural age.