Nathaniel Hawthorne is the author of the parable, “The Minister’s Black Veil” in which it contains dark romantic characteristics such as Mr. Hooper's “dark veil” as it is dark, spooky, and mysterious. It is a symbol to Mr. Hooper as the lies and sins of everyone else as is shown by the end of the story. But brings fear to the rest of the townspeople. As an example of this, the author immediately began his story describing the walk of Mr. Hooper through the aisle of his church. “With this gloomy shade before him, good Mr. Hooper walked onward, at a slow and quiet pace, stooping somewhat, and looking on the ground, as is customary with abstracted men, yet nodding kindly to those of his parishioners…” (Hawthorne 2 ) The author already shows …show more content…
They had no idea what to think of the veil. They wondered if he was hiding from a terrible sin or from God. The mystery of the veil almost drove everyone crazy such as when the woman who gets up and leaves while in the middle of a sermon. When the parishioners see his black veil they think of some of their darkest thoughts. They let their own thoughts run wild and spread rumors as if they really knew why he wore it around the church and everywhere else. Mr. Hooper comes out as a romantic character in the story because he rejects the rules of being acceptable to society, whereas he continues to wear the veil whether it pleases the town or not and because he is isolated from everyone else which is generally a cause of romantic characters. Because of the wearing of the black veil, it intensifies his sermon over “secret sin” and causes more questions from the people, wondering if this was the reason the pastor wore it. (Hawthorne 3) Throughout the story, there are more events that occur that cause the town to speculate, such as when Mr. Hooper is invited to a funeral to be side by side near the dead corpse. Or the wedding to marry a couple and decides to continue and wear the …show more content…
Hooper not only doesn’t compromise to the people's pleasure of removing the veil but he wouldn’t remove it to his wife either, causing him to become lonely and causing Mr. Hooper to become much more mysterious to the people for the reason that a husband should normally trust his wife to tell her anything rather, Mr. Hooper was the opposite of that and occurred more fright to the people. “The company at the wedding awaited his arrival with impatience, trusting that he strange awe, which gathered over him throughout the day, would now be dispelled. But suh was not the result. When Mr. Hooper came, first thing that their eyes rested on was the same horrible black veil, which had added deeper gloom to the funeral, and could portend nothing but evil to the wedding.” (Hawthorne 7) On the evening of marrying the couple who is known as the most handsome young couple in the town, rather than everyone being happy, everyone became superstitious once more, when Mr. Hooper came back again with his black veil. This shows just how much of a romantic character he is for not caring whether it was the right timing or not, he continues to wear it for what he wants to symbolize it for. While at the wedding, their happens to be more bad omens such as the bride's finger growing cold, the spilling of wine and the dark gloom that seems to occur in the day when Hooper walks
Mr. Hooper the minister’s is perceived to be a “self-disciplined man”. When he was wearing the veil people in his village believed that he went insane and is guilty of a dark and terrible sin. “He has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face” (1253).The author explains how Mr.Hooper would wear a mask to hide his sins and face which cause people to believe he was awful. The veil becomes the center of discussion for all of those in the congregate the mask all the people wore around others to hide their sins and embraces there guilty. Elizabeth in the story ends her relationship with Mr. Hooper because he will not remove the veil that he's wearing. The veil actually symbolize for the puritans belief that all people souls are black from
“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 sermons. Although, this one was dark, and Mr. Hooper had a gloom temperament. The subject for that sermon was about secret sin. When Mr. Hooper greeted people, they returned with strange and bewildered looks.
There is no end to the ambiguity in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil”; this essay hopes to explore this problem within the tale.
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...
Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil" embodies the hidden sins that we all hide and that in turn distance us from the ones we love most. Reverend Hooper dons a black veil throughout this story, and never takes it off. He has discerned in everyone a dark, hidden self of secret sin. In wearing the veil Hooper dramatizes the isolation that each person experiences when they are chained down by their own sinful deeds. He has 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.
"The Minister's Black Veil" by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a short story that was first published in the 1836 edition of the Token and Atlantic Souvenir and reappeared over time in Twice-Told Tales, a collection of short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The short story narrates the events following Reverend Mr. Hooper's decision to begin wearing a black veil that obscures his full face, except for his mouth and chin. Mr. Hooper simply arrives one day at the meeting house wearing the semi-transparent black veil and refuses from then on to take it of, leading to the loss of his fiancée and isolation form the world. He is even buried in the black veil. Yet, what is important to note are Mr. Hooper's last words to those surrounding his deathbed. He tells them namely in anger that all of them wear black veils: “I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!”. This declaration underlines the meanings of the veil in the story as symbolic of sin, darkness, and the duality within human nature. Thus, "The Minister's Black Veil" by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a literary work of art that demonstrates the author's use of allegory to highlight the psychological angle of the story and characters.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Minister’s Black Veil”, the reader is introduced to Parson Hooper, the reverend of a small Puritan village. One Sunday morning, Hooper arrived to mass with a black veil over his impassive face. The townspeople began to feel uneasy due to their minister’s unusual behavior. When Parson appeared, “Few could refrain from twisting their heads towards the door; many stood upright….” (Monteiro 2). Throughout the story Hooper does not take off the black veil and the townspeople, including Reverend Clark from a nearby village, treat him as if he were contagious disease. A veil typically is used to represent sorrow, but in this story it is used to represent hidden sins. No one exactly knows why he
In “The Minister’s Black Veil,” for example, Hawthorne describes how, “perhaps the palefaced congregation was almost as fearful a sight to the minister, as his black veil to them”(2). This directly contrasts the “light” faces of the members of the congregation with the darkness of the minister’s veil. By stating that the minister was just as afraid of the people as the people were of him, Hawthorne indicates that the people fear the minister due to the abrupt reveal of his mysterious sin, but the minister also somewhat fears the people and the secrets they hold deep within their hearts. The people of the town are supposedly pure and innocent, yet it is clear that many of the citizens carry the burden of their own evils. Although the minister boldly comes forward with his own sin, he still feels the pain of the loneliness, scorn, and spite that has come with his statement. Hawthorne represents the discomfort the guilty townspeople feel when in the presence of Mr. Hooper when he describes how they were, “conscious of lighter spirits the moment they lost sight of the black veil” (3). Once again, this use of light and dark imagery supports Hawthorne’s argument that people, even those who claim to be pure and innocent, are capable of sin. The townspeople in Mr. Hooper’s community feel the burden of their own sins when they come in
The story “The Minister’s Black Veil” is symbolic of the hidden sins that we hide and separate ourselves from the ones we love most. In wearing the veil Hooper presents the isolation that everybody experiences when they are chained down by their own sins. He has realized that everybody symbolically can be found in the shadow of their own veil. By Hooper wearing this shroud across his face is only showing the dark side of people and the truth of human existence and nature.
In “The minister’s black veil” The black veil Mr.hooper puts on is to prevent people from spying on his private life. The veil symbolized that human nature is blinded by sins and they way the town treated him after he started wearing the veil shows that there faith is blind they couldn't understand where he was coming from. “ Mr. Hooper's conscience tortured him for some great crime too horrible to be entirely concealed, or otherwise than so obscurely intimated. Thus, from beneath the black veil, there rolled a cloud into the sunshine, an ambiguity of sin or sorrow, which
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
Another ceremony affected by the veil is a wedding between a couple of Milford. Hawthorne describes the event, “The bridal pair stood up before the minister, but the bride’s cold fingers quivered in the tremulous hand of the bridegroom, and her death-like paleness cause a whisper that the maiden who had been buried a few hours before was come from her grave to be married” (Hawthorne 1044). It appears that the presence of Mr. Hooper’s veil has the
Throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne 's literary work, The Minister 's Black Veil, the sensation of the veil, the separation it creates from good things in life, and the persistence of the black veil on earth symbolize sin in mankind. During the whole parable, Mr. Hooper is restrained by the black veil and cannot live a free, enjoyable life. Also, people around him cannot tolerate the overwhelming, dark feeling that the black veil generates. Similarly, sin can take over people’s lives and create a feeling of hopelessness and gloom. Hawthorne’s parable overall demonstrates power and impact of sin on
In the short story, “The Minister’s Black Veil,” Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the Mr. Hooper’s black veil and the words that can describe between him and the veil. Hawthorne demonstrates how a black veil can describe as many words. Through the story, Hawthorne introduces the reader to Mr. Hooper, a parson in Milford meeting-house and a gentlemanly person, who wears a black veil. Therefore, Mr. Hooper rejects from his finance and his people, because they ask him to move the veil, but he does not want to do it. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil”, Mr. Hooper’s black veil symbolizes sins, darkness, and secrecy in order to determine sins that he cannot tell to anyone, darkness around his face and neighbors, and secrecy about the black veil.