In Nathanial Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown", is Young Goodman Brown's reaction to his wife and others upon his return to Salem justified?

Stephen Holliday

Whenreturns from his experience in the forest--whether that experience was real or a
dream vision--he is a changed man.  He left the village the night before as a typical young
married man in his village, full of life and with a pretty wife named Faith.  Unfortunately, on
his return his attitude toward the people of his village, as well as his wife, was completely
changed--fearful, suspicious, and, more important, perceiving evil in everyone around
him:

[when Goodman Brown passes his minister] He shrank
from the venerable saint as if to avoid an anathema [a curse].

Goodman Brown saw, or thought he saw, his minister,  Deacon Gookin, Goody Cloyse (the
woman who gave him religious instruction) in the forest...

]]>