Theologically, interpreters of "Young Goodman Brown," Hawthorne's ever challenging masterpiece, have drawn attention to the negative nature and consequences of the protagonist's traumatic journey into the wilderness, viewing it as unthoughtfully daring and almost entircly disas- terous. They have, in discussing this particular aspect of the story, poin- ted out many of Goodman Brown's flaws in the three stages of his unfor- tunate adventure: the preamble, the excursion into the forest, and the troubling aftermath. As for the first, the preamble, we are shown how our unlucky hero is evil from the start. In the words of Professor Michaei Colacurcio, Goodman Brown is "atready in a state of bad faith'. '(1) As as the excursion itself is concerned, sccondly, the protagonist's performance is equally dissatisfactory and upsetting. For one thing, he is "easily" deceived by the devil, Also, in what utimately amounts to a debate about the relation of good to ovil. Goodman Brown, as Roy R. Male asserts, becomes completely "stupefied by the ambiguity" of the relation (2). With respect to the aftermath, thirdly, Goodman Brown is in effect ruined. He is left at the end, as Roy Harvey Pearce informs us, . suffering from a "loss of faith" and "destroyed as a person