The story demonstrates that evil is the nature of mankind in two ways: first, Brown is evil in rejecting his faith (Faith) that people can also be good; and second by the fact all people in the story participate in evil in some way. This fact, however, does not cancel the fact that people might also be good. What the devil does not say is that “goodness is also the nature of mankind,” but the lives the people in the village lead demonstrate this. It is not that they are hypocrites; rather they are both good and evil, for such is the real human condition as a result of our fall from Paradise (within the context of the theme of the story). Hawthorne wants us to understand this dualism in which we all share: we are simultaneously good and evil, and to reject one or the other results in alienation from the greater community of humankind. Not to accept this results in distrust, and not to realize the possibilities of our “dark side” results in hypocrisy. These—alienation from others and hypocrisy—are, in Hawthorne’s view, the greatest sins.
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