Introduction. “Young Goodman Brown” is a first-published short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne depicting Salem in the mid-18th century, a town near Boston infamous for its “witch hunts” where women were sentenced to death for witchcraft. The writer's great-grandfather was a judge who participated in these events. A simple plan to help the writer analyze Young Goodman Brown might begin by writing down the topic of the essay, the thesis the writer intends to demonstrate, and three to five examples.