Reveal Character

There is an innocence and naiveté about Young Goodman Brown as he enters the forest. He seems to think he and his wife to be immune from being tainted by evil. Consider this passage that sounds like Puritan domestic bliss,

"My love and my Faith," replied young Goodman Brown, "of all nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee. My journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs be done 'twixt now and sunrise. What, my sweet, pretty wife, dost thou doubt me already, and we but three months married!"

There is also the hypocrisy because he is going to partake in something obviously evil.