“Young Goodman Brown” – Conflict, Climax, ResolutionEdmund Fuller and B. Jo Kinnick in “Stories Derived from New England Living” state that “'Young Goodman Brown 'uses the context of witchcraft to explore the uncertainties of faith that trouble a man's heart and mind” (31). Are the claims of these critics correct? This essay will examine Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" to determine the conflict, climax, and resolution. The conflict between pride and humility is the direction in which Clarice Swisher leans in "Nathaniel Hawthorne: a Biography": Hawthorne himself was concerned with problems of evil, the nature of sin, the conflict between pride and humility" (13). There is no doubt about the protagonist's pride as he chides his wife for not trusting him completely: "'My love and my faith,' replied young Goodman Brown, 'of all the nights in the year, this night must I stay away. from you. My journey, as you call it, there and back, must necessarily end between this day and dawn. What, my sweet, lovely wife, you already doubt me, and we have been married only three months looking at the end! of the tale, perhaps it is Goodman's pride that leads him to live the rest of his days in obscurity; the opposite virtue of humility may facilitate his adaptation to a world of sinners. Gloria C. Erlich in "The Divided Artist and His Uncles" says that "he let his more outlandish characters test the limitless for him and sadly concluded that it was unlivable" (38). Stanley T. Williams in “Hawthorne's Puritan Mind” states: “This to which he wrote unforgettable stories of men and women afflicted by guilt, or, as he called it, "a stain on the soul" (43). Sculley Bradley, Richmond Croom Beatty, and E. Hudson Long in “The Social Criticism of a Public Man” state, “He was absorbed in the puzzles of evil and moral responsibility” (47). Using an assortment of literary critical opinions, this reader finds the central conflict in the tale to be internal: the conflict in Goodman Brown's mind and soul between joining the devil's ranks and remaining a morally good person, and l The extension of this conflict to the world at large represented by the inhabitants of the village of Salem. It is a difficult personal journey for Young Goodman Brown, a young Puritan residing in Salem, Massachusetts, in the 1600s to say goodbye to Faith on that fateful night and fulfill a previous commitment made to an evil character (the devil) in the woods.