3. The guide, or "fellow traveller" plays a very important role in this story, and is very symbolic. He is most definitely a metaphor for the devil, as he tries to lure Goodman Brown to the witch meeting. Goodman Brown, on the other hand, is representative of all average, goodhearted men. The fellow traveller is described as being an elder man dressed in grave and decent attire, as opposed to what many would first picture when thinking of the devil, but he is meant to entice people into joining him. After meeting up with the old man, the traveller says that he is late, to which Brown replies, "Faith kept me back a while," which could be taken two different ways. Obviously Brown's wife, Faith, did keep him back a few minutes, but Hawthorne is most likely also alluding to the idea that Brown's faith in God may have kept him away from the evil meeting as well. The old man also gives Goodman Brown his walking stick, described as being serpent like, which is another reference to the devil. Finally, when Brown says to the fellow traveller that he should not go any further because it would shame his family name, the old man replies that he was with his grandfather when he lashed a Quaker woman and gave his father the fire to burn down an Indian village, which is essentially saying that he, the devil, was in them and the reason why they committed such devilish deeds. He once again tries to lure Brown further by saying that his father and his father's father both trusted in him and that he should do the same. I see this as an opposite version of the Footprints in the Sand poem, which basically says that Jesus carries us through our hard times, and here, contrasting that idea, the devil is telling Brown by giving him his cane that he will carry him to the meeting (or ultimately, to evil). I'm sure there are many other ways to look at this story and many symbolic reasons for choosing every little detail that Hawthorne included, but this is my speculation of the novel, and why he did what he did.