Three Messages From Veil
Three Messages portrayed in Hawthorne's, “Minister's Black Veil”
Many people reacted with shock or agitation after a minister began wearing a crape upon his face. A crape is a piece of black cloth worn as a sign of mourning. Nathaniel Hawthorne was intrigued with the pathology and psychology of the human mind. One example is, “indirectly participated in the growing medical trend of pathologizing excessive religious fervor.” (Goldman) Hawthorne wanted to play with the human mind and see how they would react based of their beliefs and emotions. In Hawthorne’s The Minister’s Black Veil, there are three main messages.
Hawthorne Portrays a message of fear of change in his story, The Minister's Black Veil. Mr. Hooper went to church everyday like a normal person. All of a sudden he began showing up wearing the crape, and people wondered why at first but then fear arose when he quit communication with the people and only preaching day after day. “Thus narrowly, yet with reverence, does Hawthorne analyze the delicate traits of human sentiment and character.” (Tuckerman) Nathaniel Hawthorne was interested in psychology and how the human mind worked. People began to fear saying “he has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face.” (hawthorne) People feared he was becoming of threat.
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“Hooper's veil was a badge of shame for the illicit relationship he had had with the young lady whose funeral is described in the story.” (Montbriand) He wasn't wearing the veil because he had wanted to. Mr. Hooper wore the veil to hide the secrets he had and he did not want to speak to others about the situation. People ran after trying to force him out of his shell. “Are you ready for the lifting of the veil that shuts in time for eternity?” (hawthorne) They told him he could not stay living in the past and that he needed to move
“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards and “The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne are both 1700s Puritan works of literature with similarities, as well as differences, from their theme to tone and to what type of literary work they are. Edwards and Hawthorne are both expressing the topics of how people are all sinners, especially in regards to their congregation and that questions their congregation’s faith.
One of the reasons behind the veil might be secret sin. Father Hooper might have committed a very bad sin, which he does not want to unveil to anyone. Instead of not telling anyone the sin he shows it clearly on his face with the aid of a black veil. This black veil might relieve tension in his body that has accumulated due to his sin. In the story, Father Hooper says that everyone wears a black veil, meaning that everyone commits secret sins without revealing them to anyone. If you do not express your secret sin you would be keeping stress and tension locked up inside you, but if you express it, the stress and tension will be relieved.
His lover, Elizabeth, leaves him, because he refuses to take the veil off. The plot to the story is that Parson Hooper tries to overcome the gossiping of the town, and make people accept him. However, his plan backfires and they reject him. “ Mr Hooper had the reputation of a good preacher, but not an energetic one: he strove to win his people heavenward, rather than to drive them thither,” states Hawthorne. The sermon he gives with the black veil on his face, is the same style and manner he gave the last sermon.
Hooper wears the veil to symbolize his mourning for the secret sins of many of the Puritans who fear the severe punishments for transgressions and live as hypocrites become apparent in the denouement of Hawthorne’s story. “This is stating that Mr. Hooper wears the Black Veil to show his sorrow for the towns people’s sins.” Mr. Hooper wishes to teach a moral lesson to his congregation by wearing a veil that only each man and woman can interpret according to their own consciences.” Basically what that quote suggests is that Mr. Hooper is to carry the burden of their sins; learn from their mistakes. Mr. Hooper says in the story “The Minister’s Black Veil” he is aware of their sins.
Nathaniel Hawthorne in “The Minister’s Black Veil” is able to show the hypocrisy and the overemphasis of the Puritan people and their beliefs by engaging the reader in this short story by using “a gentlemanly person” (409) who decides to start wearing a black veil over his face. As Milford’s finest gather on “the porch of [the] meeting house” (409) and enjoy the hope of another Sunday service, the townspeople’s sunny disposition and picturesque setting soon changes as Parson Hooper emerges with a “simple piece of crape” covering his face. This unusual appearance of the Reverend to the townspeople even has some of them feeling faint and forcing some women “of delicate nerves to leave the service” (410). Even though Parson Hooper’s demeanor and his polite and gracious behavior is the same as always, and his preaching is much more interesting and entertaining, the townspeople perceive their minister far differently. As Parson Hooper continues to don the veil, people start to stare at him and rumors begin to fly, especially since his sermon dealt with the topic of secret sin. As the people make him a social pariah, Parson Hooper becomes a representation of hidden sin and an object of dread. Even as death knocks on his door, Parson Hooper still will not allow himself to be unveiled, in fact, Hooper finally reveals that no one should be afraid of him, but of one another because “men avoided me, and women shown no pity, and children screamed and fled” (417) all because of a simple black veil. Through the use of symbols, Hawthorne is able to use this short story to prove that the community people and the Puritan’s religion and their beliefs are hypocritical and over zealous.
Mr. Hooper in “The Minister’s Black Veil” puts on a veil to symbolize “those sad mysteries which we hid[e] from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient can detect them” (Hawthorne 310). From the moment the townsfolk see the black veil they become very frightened and intimidated by Mr. Hooper, the citizens felt that “the black veil seemed to hang down before his heart” (Hawthorne 308). People became very frightened even the “most innocent girl, and the man of hardened breast” (Hawthorne 312) Mr. Hooper puts this crape on as a “symbol of a fearful secret between him and them” and because of this society chastises him and makes him out to be a...
He realizes that symbolically everyone can be found in the shadow of their own dark veil. Hooper in wearing this shroud across his face is only amplifying the dark side of people and the truth of human existence and nature. Hooper has come to the realization that secret sin is a veil that can never be lifted from anyone's life until the day of their death, and so he wears the dark cloth on for many years. "There is an hour to come, when all of us shall cast aside our veils. " Take it not amiss, beloved friend, if I wear this piece of crepe till then."
Before Hooper began wearing the veil the community held great respect for him. It was a tradition that he be invited to dinner after each sermon. After a sermon there were many who were also ready to offer their praises. He was always welcome at any celebration, especially weddings. One day he steps
Hooper as someone who “‘has changed himself into something awful,’” just by wearing the veil (1312). It is unknown whether he is blocking something out or keeping something to himself. When the people of Milford first see the black veil on the minister’s face, they begin to question and look in disbelief. “‘Something must surely be amiss with Mr. Hooper’s intellects,’” says a man (1314). What was strange from this was the effect of the unexpected change, which the black veil “‘throws its influence over [Mr. Hooper’s] whole person, and makes him ghost-like from head to toe’” (1314). It could be that the minister is hiding something. During a funeral for a young lady, he stoops over the coffin, and “the veil hung straight down from his forehead” (1314). If the woman is not dead, and if “her eye-lids had not been closed for ever,” she would have seen the minister’s face (1314). A superstitious woman supposedly sees the coffin shake when this happened, and Mr. Hooper “so hastily caught the black veil” (1314). In addition, other details of the story seem to link him to the death of the young maiden. He conducts her funeral on the very day he first wears the veil, and there is the speculation “‘that the minister and the maiden’s spirits were walking hand in hand’” (1314). However, a superstitious old woman says this, making it hard to believe. Mr. Hooper could have been hiding something from the people, what many though to be a shameful
It is no secret that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil” is a parable. Hawthorne intended it as such and even gave the story the subtitle “a parable.” “The Minister’s Black Veil,” however, was not Hawthorne’s only parable. Hawthorne often used symbols and figurative language to give added meaning to the literal interpretations of his work. His Puritan ancestry also influenced much of Hawthorne’s work. Instead of agreeing with Puritanism however, Hawthorne would criticize it through the symbols and themes in his stories and parables. Several of these symbols and themes reoccur in Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil,” “Young Goodman Brown”, and The Scarlet Letter.
Hooper wears the veil every day, the veil and Mr. Hooper do not mold into one because Mr. Hooper treats the veil like a foreign object. In the story, the narrator alludes to the fact that veil is hiding something about Mr. Hooper, but the reader is not told what is being hidden or what the veil symbolizes. The narrator states that “the black veil involved his own spirit in the horror” as if the veil itself is a separate being from him. Mr. Hooper could also be hiding from the reason he decided to wear the veil in the first place. Viewing himself brought great horror because the veil potentially represents a negative aspect or past memory of Mr. Hooper; seeing himself with the veil may induce for Mr. Hooper a negative memory or
Mr. Hooper’s veil is very sentimental to him. His veil is looked at in different ways, it can symbolize the confession of his sins or a way to hide his sins. Mr. Hooper showed honesty toward his veil. He didn’t take it off even when people tempted him to take it off, specifically when his soon to be wife debated with him to take the veil off who was pretty much the only person who had the courage to go up and talk to him about the veil, he then rebuttled and told her he can not take it off. People around were thinking he was hiding secret sin, but we really don’t know why Mr. Hooper wore that veil, but for whatever the reason was, Mr.Hooper was being honest in whatever the reason was he wore that veil, to either show he is confessing his sins and showing that he is a sinner or a symbolic way to show that we are all sinners and we all have masks but the only difference is that his veil is
“Lift the veil but once and look me in the face.”, “Never! It cannot be!”, ` “Then farewell.”(Hawthorne, Pg 5). This shows that even the love of his life has alienated Hooper because of the veil. As time went on, people would continuously alienate him. People were not talking to him and children screaming and running away. This goes to show that the town folks only judge others based on by the person's appearance. Hooper's personality hasn't changed a bit from before he started to wear the black veil yet the people still choose to alienate him. One of the critiques states that Hooper is doing a favor for the town folks. “the wearing of the veil can be seen as an ethical move in which Hooper takes the sin of the entire community.”(Boone, par 4). This shows that Hooper is acting as a scapegoat for the people. On his deathbed, Hooper finally reveals why he has worn the veil all his life, “on every visage a black veil.”(Hawthorne, Pg 7). He finally showed that everyone has a secret sin within them and they are all wearing a black veil so they shouldn't judge others just by their appearance.
Hooper’s black veil also creates separation between him and happiness. “All through life that piece of crape had hung between him and the world: it had separated him from cheerful brotherhood and woman’s love, and kept him in that saddest of all prisons his own heart; and still it lay upon his face, as if to deepen the gloom of his darksome chamber, and shade him from the sunshine of eternity” (Hawthorne 417). He can never receive sympathy or have conversations with people because they are always perplexed by the veil. Children in the town run from him because of his appearance. Even his wife, Elizabeth, leaves him because she does not understand the meaning of the black veil and she cannot bear to look at it for the rest of her life. The separation that the veil causes between Mr. Hooper and happiness symbolizes how sin can easily separate people from good things in life. Just like the black veil, some sins can even destroy relationships or a person’s dreams. Sin can overall control an individual’s happiness like the veil did to Mr.
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.