The Puritan is as possessed by ‘evil’ as the devil-worshipper they condemn they’re just possessed in different ways. If it’s true that the only two kinds of person who are wholly obsessed with evil are the very bad and the very good (in the sense of being puritanical about making sure everyone else is as ‘good’ as they are), then ‘Young Goodman Brown’ is as much a cautionary tale about being lured over to the ‘dark side’, because even if you don’t end up embracing it, it will already have embraced you. Young Goodman Brown actually resists the initiation in the woodland clearing, involving the blood-baptism, but the story suggests that this doesn’t matter: he has still come to recognise evil and has thus been initiated into its ways. The story is remarkable in its depiction of evil not least because it raises interesting questions about what it means to ‘become’ or ‘know’ evil. Herman Melville, the author of Moby-Dick, thought ‘Young Goodman Brown’ was ‘deep as Dante’ in its exploration of the darker side of human nature.
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