Death of the Black Veil When a town’s Minster changes his looks, who knows what can happen. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “The Minister's Black Veil”, Mr. Hooper, the town’s Minister, shows up to church with a black veil on and everyone questions it and spreads rumors. This ends with his wife leaving and his death. Nathaniel Hawthorne expresses a deep theme of society being judgmental which can be proven with the imagery and the relationship conflicts. There is no doubt that the imagery, shown in the town’s people spreading rumors, supports the theme of society is destructively judgmental. The people of the town made Mr.Hooper a laughing stalk by making suspicions about the veil. In “The Minister's Black Veil” the judgment of the …show more content…
The reader can visualize the image of all these people in the church just whispering and coming up with ideas of why he wears the veil. This imagery shows how even in church these people are just judging the minister, which is horrible because church is supposed to be a judge free place. Being a good Christian, according to the Bible, means not judging and being accepting of others. Not only do they talk badly about him in the church, but they were so judgmental, that when he died he was finally at peace. The narrator states,” While his auditors shrank from one another, in mutual affright, Father Hooper fell back upon his pillow, a veiled corpse, with a faint smile lingering on his lips. Still veiled they laid him in …show more content…
Hawthorne uses this is to show how the judgment of others can change the character’s view of them. The most obvious place see in the story is between Mr. Hooper and his fiance Elizabeth, “Beloved and respected as you are, there may be whispers that you hide your face under consciousness of secret sin. For the sake of your holy office, do away with this scandal” (479). This shows Elizabeth getting mad because she wants to protect her husband from the judgment. While this can be seen as true she is also doing it for her own benefit. She doesn’t like being associated with all of the words coming out about this veil. While she feels this way, Mr. Hooper still loves her and can understand her frustration. He still adores her and doesn’t want her to go. Mr. Hooper knows she wants to leave, but he wants to resolve the conflict, “Do not desert me , through this veil over my face, no darkness between us here on earth. Be mine and hereafter there shall be no darkness between our souls!” (479). Though he pours his heart out to her yet she doesn’t care He knows she will not understand, but wants her to know the veil is just a clothing item and that when their in heaven it will be gone. Even after doing this she is still stuck in her ways. Elizabeth states,””Lift the veil but once, and look me in the face,” said she. “Never! It cannot be!” replied Mr. Hooper. “Then farewell!”said Elizabeth.” (479). Though
Minister Hooper is a very good man, believes solely in Christ, and throughout the story we come to see how his views on religion reflect his humanity and humility. In “The Minister’s Black Veil,” Minister Hooper dons a black veil that causes an eruption of gossip in his community. The townspeople do not have any clue as to why he is wearing this black veil and see it as scary and devilish. The people in the community believe that Minister Hooper is wearing the veil to cover up a horrible sin. This may not be the case, however, because he may be wearing it as a symbol of his faith.
This short story reflects the Puritans’ lifestyle in the early colonial stage by using the black veil of Reverend Hooper to guide people through the sinful and struggling life of the Puritans. “The Minister’s Black Veil” is only one of the great stories written by Nathanial Hawthorne, and there are more Romanticism books like The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables, and they also talk about the changes and struggles of human
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.
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...
The minister replies that the veil could be a “sign of mourning.” Elizabeth contends that the veil could be construed as a sign of “secret sin” and should be removed for “the sake of your holy office.” This dialogue, the longest in the entire story, add layers of information regarding the temperament and motivation of the main character. Mr. Hooper responds with the comment that “if I cover it for secret sin, what mortal might not do the same?'' This answer supports the earlier rationale of spiritual-moral motives behind the veil.
Unlike Hester’s scarlet letter as a method of punishment, the black veil that Mr. Hooper wears is to teach his fellow Christians some lessons. He first wants to teach his community how judgmental humans are. Just by the change of his appearance, the town takes on a very different attitude towards Mr. Hooper. Mr. Hooper, before the wearing of his veil, was a very likeable man in his community. His speeches were often given praise and he was on very amiable terms with his neighbors and townspeople. After Mr. Hooper starts to wear his veil, people do not treat him the same way. Elizabeth, who was happily engaged to him, is undergoing some second thoughts.
Everyone masks themselves with false pride in order to cover up who they really are. No one is truly and utterly honest with others or even themselves. Such is the case of Mr. Hooper, a pastor whom Hawthorne portrays in The Minister’s Black Veil. The story follows his life as a minister who wears a black veil everywhere he goes. In Hawthorne’s tale, the black veil is a hungry beast which feeds on the souls of the vulnerable. Through the use of symbolism, Hawthorne uses Mr. Hooper black veil to represent pride and the five ways it corrupts Christian leadership.
“Hester to ask, the bitterness of heart, whether it were for ill or good that the poor little creature had been born at all”.(Hawthorne 128) Here we see Hester have a sense of regret on having born her child Pearl , because she will very well as her mother be affected by her sin. “Her character had been withered up by this red-hot brand”. (Hawthorne 128) The Scarlet letter had began to have an effect on Hester and how she acted and how she lived every day. Her physical feature had also changed by this A “that her rich and luxuriant hair had either been cut off or was so completely hidden by a cap”. (Hawthorne 128)“ The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance..”,but now Hester had hidden all her woman like features and we see the affect the Scarlet letter had taken upon her and her child. The veil also has an effect on Rev. Hooper on his relations with other people. Adults and children fear the Black Veil and Elizabeth has an affect on Rev. Hooper. During a conversation with Elizabeth, she ask Rev. Hooper to lift the veil so she may see his face he refuses. “She withdrew her arm from his grasp, and slowly departed,pausing at the door,to give one long shuddering gaze, that seemed almost to penetrate the mystery of the black veil”. (Hawthorne 6) The black veil and the Scarlet letter had a most lasting impression on the people. When Rev. Hooper said that he saw a black veil on everybody's
...ke the veil off. Here Hawthorne delivers us the message of what we feel and how much we regret when we do hurt to the people that we love, especially with no intention of doing it. Hawthorne indicates the repentance and shame that Mr. Hooper feels about his shameful sin. Thus, the similarities between the unnamed narrator in the story of Poe, and Mr. Hooper is that they both felt regret about their actions and they make some decisions that lead to harming people they love and care about. The minister decides to put a black veil about his sin and the unnamed narrator ends up admitting the assassination of the old man. The similar connotation of both Poe and Hawthorne is that if we harm people that we love without intention or even with purpose, our voice of consciousness will always recall us to that sin and it will eventually lead to insanity or ambiguous behavior.
The Minister, however, acknowledges neither his own strange appearance nor the stunned and questioning whispering of the townspeople. As a preacher, Hooper delivers a sermon that was as powerful as the rest but, due to his veil, the people felt a certain sadness and mysteriousness in his words. Following the sermon, the townspeople continued to gossip about the mystery of the veil. Mr. Hooper continued to act as always, greeting the children and saluting his neighbors. But, he was met with bewildered looks as the crowd avoided him. As he turned, a sad smile crept from underneath his veil. At this point in the plot of The Minister’s Black Veil, there is a definite turn in the way the people of the town perceive their minister and is seen throughout the story such as in the setting of funeral and wedding. It is the uncertainty that makes the reaction of the townspeople all the more telling of their intrinsic sin and hypocritical nature. While speculating as to what horrific crime the minister must have committed, they overlook their own nature of sin, both large and minor. In times of need, the minister is the one who is willingly called upon, but circumvented when all is good. The townspeople shun him only because of a black veil and in doing so reveal how shallow and unappreciative their faith truly
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
Hooper delivers his sermon, which is about how everyone has a secret sin that acts as a barrier between themselves and the others around them, with a black veil covering his face, “each member of the congregation, the most innocent girl, and the man of hardened breast, felt as if the preacher had crept upon them, behind his awful veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought.” (106). The message of his sermon, paired with the veil, causes the townspeople to feel as if Mr. Hooper can see their individual secret sins and expose them to the public, which, in a Puritanical society, makes one vulnerable to public punishment or ostracism by the community. Due to their fears of having their Christian facades shattered and their subsequent sinful natures revealed, the townspeople alienate the minister. This reflects hypocrisy in the sense that their fears come from knowing they are essentially living double lives, which causes more hypocritical behavior to arise in the form of treating their minister in quite the opposite way one should treat a human being, especially one who serves the church in such a high position. Furthermore, on his deathbed, Mr. Hooper points out the townspeople’s hypocrisy when he exclaims, “Why do you tremble at me alone? Tremble also at each other. . . .I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!” (118). Through this exclamation, he is trying to urge the townspeople to reveal their secret sins and stop hiding under a
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.