STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

I don't think I read Young Goodman Brown, but I googled the synopsis and it looks like you could get a pretty meaty comparison. 

According to the synopsis, Goodman Brown's illusions about his town are crushed when he learns his fellow townspeople are attending a black mass.  He is unable to accept their evil behavior and spends the rest of his life in turmoil. In LOTF, the characters' actions reinforce the idea that without social constructs, man resorts to his most basic, animalistic insticts. 

You may want to reference or read Thomas Hobbes' writings on Social Contracts. Hobbes believed that if man is truly free, he is also truly savage, and man gives up freedom in order to live within a society. In LOTF, the boys have no society, and thus total freedom. Inevitably, this leads to savagery and distruction. In Goodman Brown, even within society, man creates evil, which may mean that the society itself has become the platform for man's savage nature/

Both stories deal with the fact that man, inherently, is drawn to evil even though he may seem good within the structures of society. In addition, it seems the ending of both stories reinforce the sad concept that even when "saved" from savagery, we cannot escape it. In Goodman Brown, the safe, pious side of true religion is tainted by the Salem witch trials and the violence/paranoia that ensues; in LOTF, the boys' rescuers are Naval officers, who are embroiled in their own world war. This may hint at the idea that "social contracts," when created and governed by man, are subject to the same inner savagery and temptation that man creates in the wilderness, albeit a different kind.

Hope that helps a little!