Young Goodman Brown Setting

came by his
knowledge of the attitudes and beliefs of the Puritans naturally; he was a descendant of John
Hawthorne, a magistrate during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692.

Puritans
tended to believe that the woods should be avoided for both practical and spiritual reasons.
 Practically speaking, the woods were a place that concealed the Native Americans who
compromised the Puritans' safety.  Puritans had little understanding of the indigenous people's
spiritual beliefs and, thus, dismissed them as devil worshipers; as a result, the woods were a
place where a Puritan should not stray. To enter the woods was a symbolic act of exploring life
outside the orthodoxy of Puritan belief, making it the perfect setting forto put his faith to
the test. 

Salem was a colony set up as a religious utopia for the Puritans.
Like its predecessor, Plymouth, Puritans believed that they had built a model "city on a
hill," a new Zion that offered a model for other Christians, especially the ones they
considered tainted, namely, the Quakers, Anabaptists, Anglicans, and Catholics. In "Young
Goodman Brown," Salem represents a stronghold of faith. The fact that the titular character
elects to step outside itand suffers terribly as a resultsuggests the intolerance, rigidity, and
ultimately unrealistic nature of a religion that demands perfect conduct from its
practitioners.