How we cite our quotes: (Paragraph)
Quote #4
As they went, he plucked a branch of maple to serve for a walking-stick, and began to strip it of the twigs and little boughs that were wet with evening dew. The moment his fingers touched them, they became strangely withered and dried up, as with a week's sunshine. (38)
Okay, this is definite evidence that the traveler has supernatural powers. Right? The plants do become "strangely withered and dried up." But maybe Goodman Brown is just dreaming it, after all.
Quote #5
At the word, Goodman Brown stepped forth from the shadow of the trees and approached the congregation, with whom he felt a loathful brotherhood by the sympathy of all that was wicked in his heart. He could have well-nigh sworn that the shape of his own dead father beckoned him to advance, looking downward from a smoke wreath, while a woman, with dim features of despair, threw out her hand to warn him back. Was it his mother?
Check out the phrase "could have well-night sworn." Even Brown isn't sure what's going on. Everything that happens to him could have a perfectly logical explanation—or it could be evidence that he's surrounded by his very own "loathful brotherhood."
Quote #6
But he had no power to retreat one step, nor to resist, even in thought, when the minister and good old deacon Gookin seized his arms and led him to the blazing rock. Thither came also the slender form of a veiled female, led between Goody Cloyse, that pious teacher of the catechism, and Martha Carrier, who had received the devil's promise to be queen of hell. A rampant hag was she. And there stood the proselytes beneath the canopy of fire. (61)
Notice here how the ambiguity has dropped again. We get people's proper names, without any "might have been" or "looked like." But is this the narrator's voice telling us that these events are really happening—or is it just Hawthorne writing what Goodman Brown thinks is happening?