In "Young Goodman Brown," how are the setting and characters interrelated?

You have asked a question that points towards the
allegorical significance of this excellent short story. Clearly, the setting plays an
immensely important part in the story. Note how Young Goodman Brown is said to leave his
home and to head towards the forest, which is described in terms that make it ominous
and foreboding, foreshadowing the evil sights that Goodman Brown will
witness:

He
had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of teh forest, which barely
stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind. It was
all as lonely as could
be...

The forest is
definitely described as an evil place, a place hidden from light and where evil acts can
be perpetrated without others knowing. Thus it is a fitting place for Goodman Brown in
his "present evil purpose." Of course, as he meets the Devil, and has to choose between
heading on and turning back, the other characters that he sees, fine upright, good
Christian folk (or so he thought) indicates one of the central themes in the story: the
way that we are all tainted by evil, no matter how "good" we appear to be. Note how this
is indicated by Goodman Brown's conversation with the devil about his
family:

"They
were my good friends, both; and many a pleasant walk have we had along this path, and
returned merrily after midnight. I would fain be friends with you for their
sake."

The setting and the
charactes therefore help to advance Hawthorne's main message in this story: that evil is
part of the essential human condition that cannot be ignored or covered up by masks of
spiritual hypocrisy. It is this truth that Goodman Brown learns, and which, ironically,
destroys the rest of his life as he commits himself to gloom and
doom.