The Minister's Black Veil

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"The Minister's Black Veil:"
A regular priest, Mr.Hooper decides to wear a black veil and consequently his whole life changes. Such a materialistic thing can be hard to comprehend why something like that can change someone's life but there are different interpretations of the story to be understood. Usually, a story like this can be identified as a parable it can have several meanings and subsequently leads to a moral lesson.

In this story, it demonstrates characteristics of American Romanticism such as Mr.Hooper. American Romanticized characters seem to have limitations of humanity, Inner conflict, and the disconnect between man and his nature. Throughout this story, the lack of profound spiritual perception contrasts the obsessive interest …show more content…

In addition, when Mr. Hooper attends a funeral someone claims to see the spirit of the young dead maiden and Mr.Hooper spirit walking hand in hand.(Pg 7) Another example is how he is referred to as a bugbear and how the children would always flee from him. (Pg 12) Mr. Hooper is an example of this period because he rejects society by wearing the black veil. In the same way, the people seem to be more distant towards him because of how he has seemed to be different and act very cold towards him. As well as becoming more isolated he starts taking a good look at himself and notices how the veil is an accurate representation of himself and the world and the deeper meaning of secret sin. In the same Mr.Hooper returns from his dark night of the soul to show, not understanding and compassionate brotherhood, but melancholy, asceticism and the …show more content…

Another meaning of the black veil can be an acknowledgment of how he recognizes secret sin and instead of everyone else hiding and judging him, he is the one who chooses to represent the injustices that humanity commits and is immediately separated from everyone. It also can be an understanding of seeing everything through a dark veil or seeing the black veil as truth distorted and a symbol of pride and deliberate self-isolation. The ambiguous veil is used as a catalyst by which other moral and perceptual values are examined. Since Mr.Hooper attitude is dramatic the removal of the veil can encapsulate the reader by simple curiosity,personal uneasiness and the appeal to a sense of clerical property, the assumption of a horrible crime. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses a lot of references to the bible for example when he calls the people auditors only implies that they remain spiritually blind despite Mr.Hoopers renewal of religious symbology and the informing scripture here is perhaps the parables of sowers after which Jesus says " Who

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    From the beginning of the story, Mr. Hooper comes out wearing a black veil, which represents sins that he cannot tell to anyone. Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his face, Mr. Hooper has on a black veil. Elizabeth urged, “Beloved and respected as you are, there may be whispers that you hid your face under the consciousness of secret sin” (Hawthorne 269). His fiancé says that in the black veil there may be has a consciousness of secret sin. Also, he is a parson in Milford meeting-house and a gentlemanly person, so without the veil, Hooper would be a just typical minister, “guilty of the typical sins of every human, but holier than most” (Boone par.7). He would be a typical minister who is guilty of the typical sins of every human without the black veil. Also, Boone said, “If he confesses his sin, the community can occur” (Boone par.16). If he confesses his sin about the black veil, all of the neighbors will hate him. Last, he said, “so, the veil is a saying: it is constantly signifying, constantly speaking to the people of the possibility of Hooper’s sin” (Boone par.11). Mr. Hooper’s veil says that he is trying to not tell the sins about the black veil. In conclusion, every people have sins that cannot tell to anyone like Mr. Hooper.

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