What is Brown's purpose for going into the woods?

gives
his clinging, timid wife the impression that he has to go away on a business trip. However,
there is considerablein the opening scene suggesting that he is deceiving her and has some
entirely different destination in mind.

"Well, she's
a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to
heaven.

With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt
himself justified in making more haste on his present evil
purpose.

The author does not state what
that evil purpose might be, but the story itself reveals what it is at the . Young Goodman
Brown, whom everyone regards as a nearly perfect man and ideal husband, is on his way to a
devil-worshipping ceremony to be held in the woods. At the high point of the story, the
authordescribes the ceremony with his characteristic brilliance in painting word pictures of
settings. We can imagine the big fire lighting up the tall trees and lighting up the faces of
many of the people from Young Goodman Brown's village whom he recognizes in
attendance.

The greatin "Young Goodman Brown" is that the timid
little wife he thought he had left behind seems to be leading the whole orgy herself. She was
mistaken about her husband's morals, but he was also mistaken about hers. Both have very dark
sides to their characters which they steadfastly keep hidden from the world. But evidently the
evil in their natures is like the pressure building up inside an active volcano and has to come
out occasionally. This orgy is that outburst for Brown, his wife, and most of their friends and
neighbors.

How did Brown's wife get there ahead of Brown? He left town before
she did. A clue is to be found in the story. Brown meets a sinister man on the road who
accompanies him on the rest of his journey and tells him:

You are late, Goodman Brown, said he. The clock of the Old South was striking as I
came through Boston, and that is full fifteen minutes agone.

The young man really lacks his wife's aggressiveness and fearlessness. He has been
proceeding at a slow pace because he dreads reaching his destination and also because, as the
narrator tells us, he is afraid there might be Indians behind every tree. Also, it is very dark
out there among the trees, and his wife could easily have slipped past without his knowing
it.

So Brown's purpose for going into the woods is to attend a
devil-worshipping orgy far away from town and farther away from normal civilized morality. He
may have thought he was the only one from his community who would be there, but he finds out
that everyone, including his sweet little wife, has the same evil impulses as himself. Was it
all a bad dream? Or did it really happen?

Be it so if you
will; but, alas! It was a dream of evil omen for young Goodman Brown. A stern, a sad, a darkly
meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man did he become from the night of that fearful
dream.