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Use Your Illusion In this time and age, people have become accustomed to disappointment and disillusionment from the figures that instill purpose and values into their lives. Be it Clinton’s parade of sex, lies and who knows maybe videotape to priests who enjoy the inappropriate company of young boys. People are jaded. This is not true of Nathaniel Hawthorn’s time. The people of that era had absolute faith and trust in their public figures. This sentiment increased exponentially when speaking of the clergy or church-related officials. In “Young Goodman Brown”, Hawthorne looks at one man’s decent into the murky woods of doubt and illusion of uprightness. In the story, “Young Goodman Brown”, Hawthorne shows a man who questions the backbone, which his community is assumedly built upon. As the story begins, Goodman Brown, a Puritan, is leaving his house around sunset. His wife, Faith, is trying to persuade him to depart at sunrise instead. His journey is to take him away for the night and he is to return at sunrise. He has a feeling of guilt for leaving her alone after being married to her for a mere three months, but he justifies his journey by swearing that after this night, he will “cling to her skirts