The man Goodman
Brown meets in the woods outside Salem that night, whom he had clearly had pre-arranged to meet,
is described as:
...about fifty years old, apparently in
the same rank of life as Goodman Brown, and bearing a considerable resemblance to him...they
might have been taken for father and son.
We are told
that he has a worldly air about him and that his staff
bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought that it might almost be
seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent.
The serpent, of course, symbolizes the devil, and even Goodman Brown admits to himself that his
is out there on a present evil purpose. It is often said that the devil has the power to
assume a pleasing shape (just ask Hamlet), and so readers are to put the pieces together and
determine that Satan has disguised himself as young Goodman...
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