At the end of the
story, it doesn't really seem to matter whether or not Goodman Brown dreamed the witches'
meeting because he believes it was real, and it changes him for the rest of
his life. When he sees his wife, Faith, again, he "looked sternly and sadly into her face,
and passed on without a greeting." This is very unlike the feelings he had before he saw
her (or dreamed that he saw her) in the woods the night before; then, he loved Faith and felt
somewhat guilty for leaving her alone for the night. For the rest of his life, Brown remained
"A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man [...],"
and "his dying hour was gloom."
If it was a dream, it seems to
have begun after Brown left home and sometime after he entered the forest, as his choice to
leave Faith behind is crucial to his character's change. As he walked into the forest, he
thought, "she's a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night, I'll cling to her
skirts and follow her to Heaven." In...
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