In Young Goodman Brown, Hawthorne's presentation of resistance (to evil, to injustice, etc.) is hopelessly bleak. Conscious resistance gains no ground because of the unconscious and uncontrollable evil at the center of human nature. Such an idea is illustrated early on in Brown's attempt to resist Satan: " 'I have scruples, touching the matter thou wot'st of.' 'Sayest thou so?' replied he of the serpent, smiling apart. 'Let us walk on, nevertheless, reasoning as we go, and if I convince thee not, thou shalt turn back. We are but a little way in the forest yet. 'Too far, too far!' exclaimed the goodman, unconsciously resuming his walk" (Norton Anthology of American Literature 611). Even as Brown voices resistance to Satan's will, his body unconsciously submits. After this scene, the reader learns that the man of the serpent has known Goodman Brown's family quite well for many generations, and has aiding the Browns in persecuting Quakers and Indians. Young Brown's conscious attempts to be good are uncontrollably soiled by his family history. In fact, the young man's attempts to be good, to resist Satan, become hypocritical and merely self laudatory as he applauds himself for a clear conscience, even as he remains "conscious of the guilty purpose that had brought him thither" (614). In light of this set up of the uselessness of resistance, do you think that the disappearance of the nightmarish scene means that Brown ultimately succeeded in resisting Satan by invoking Faith , or might the visible celebration of evil have merely vanished to the conscious mind, becoming a secret part of his inner heart? What might his consequent distrust of his fellow men signify? Has his knowledge of the evil at the heart of all men really given him a method for truly resisting evil and turning to good? Or has it simply pushed him even further away from any possibility of achieving true goodness?  Pay close attention to the tone of the story's end when asking yourself these questions. Also consider Hawthorne’s attitude toward the Puritan belief in original sin (see “Young Goodman Brown: Themes” and the Hawthorne biography). Is this depiction of resistance Hawthorne's personal opinion or perhaps a dramatization of Purtitan beliefs?