Nathaniel Hawthorne's setting of the forest is appropriate for the story "Young Goodman Brown" because the forest is where all the "dark, black" events occur, thus where the devil (evil) presides. The setting provides the perfect backdrop for the main theme of Good vs Evil. In literature, it is universally known that the forest is where the devil resides.
In addition, Hawthorne's story is an allegory where "symbolic elements...represent various human characteristics and situations" such as the forest being the appropriate place where Goodman Brown challenges his "Faith." Unfortunately for Brown, his spiritual journey begins in the forest and also ends there. Upon returning home, Faith greets him with open arms, but Brown "looks sadly and sternly into her face and passes without greeting". His spiritual journey into the forest has changed him forever in that he realizes that all mankind possesses evil.
Also, Hawthorne uses this setting as a characteristic of the literary movement, Romanticism. In keeping with the characteristics of romanticism, "its writers emphasized the dignity and freedom of the individual; rebellion against restrictions, whether political, cultural, or social; the importance of emotion over intellect; and the need for a personal relationship with God and the natural world". All of which the setting in "Young Goodman Brown" provides by having Brown search his spirituality in the "natural world," that being the woods.
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