The Minister’s Black Veil In the book “The Minister’s Black Veil” is an American Romanticism story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Mr. Hooper is the main character of this story. Mr. Hooper is the minister but there's something suspicious about him. He wears a black veil everyday, for couple years, and also when he died. He want to keep it on and wanted no one remove it after he died.Nobody knew why the minister would wear the black veil or why he would never take it off. May clues and reasons but none knew right. This story shows a lot of moral and religious lessons. The characteristics of american romanticism in this book is common . The characters in the story all play different roles and all in their own way add suspense to the story. …show more content…
The first is the communion of sinners. Hooper tried to get everyone in the town to open up and let go of the “secret sin”. He wanted the town to be sin free and instead of keeping the sin a secret. Facing your sin and not avoiding them is the way hooper wanted the town to be. The second is Morality. We all sin and must accept what we have done, because judgment will come for everyone. Hooper decides to represent hidden sin and guilt in a literal way to reach out. Mr. Hooper tries to make the people of his town to confess and make all their sin not a secret. And the last parable is the communion of sinners. Mr hooper wants to show his people that avoiding the sin is not the way to live. Mr. hooper tries to teach them a lesson but the veil is just making people uncomfortable. The veil should only be seen once or twice a week, not everyday. A secret sin cannot be hidden from god. The biggest sin is keeping a sin a secret, making the sinner a greater sin. “And though this antipathy makes plausible the theory that the veil represents some terrible sin, the minister's otherwise impeccable conduct suggests that the veil must instead represent a great sorrow” (Kim). Mr. Hooper wears the veil to show his
“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.
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.
“The Minister’s Black Veil” is a Romanticism short story written by Nathanial Hawthorne, and it is a story about well-respected and loving parson starts to wear a black veil, and he spends his long life isolated by his parishioners and fiancé. This is a short story classifies to Romanticism category which includes the characteristics of valuing feelings, believing supernatural and appreciating individual rights.
In “The Minister’s Black Veil” Mr. Hooper shocks his townspeople by putting a veil permanently on his face. The veil is a paradox of concealment and revelation (Carnochan 186). Although it is concealing Mr. Hooper’s face, it is made to reveal the sins in society. The townspeople first believed that the veil was being used to hide a sin that Mr. Hooper had committed. Mr. Hooper says that the veil is supposed to be a symbol of sins in general, however the townspeople ignore the message and still focus on his sinfulness. The townspeople know that they have sinned, but they use Mr. Hooper as their own “veil” to hide their sins. Because the townspeople are so caught up on his sins, they fail to figure on the message behind Mr. Hooper’s action and
Father Hooper wears a black veil over his eyes and nose, never revealing the reason of the veil to a soul. At times the sexton would insinuate a reason behind the veil but never revealing the answer to the mystery. Father Hooper is a very imaginative and creative individual to innovate the idea of wearing a black veil to express an idea. He is angry towards the response of the veil to his parishioners, since they treated him differently with the veil compared to without it. Most of the parishioners are clueless to why he wears it and some try to imagine why he would ever want to wear it, but there are only ideas and arguments to why a minister would wear it.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, a well-known American novelist in the Romantic era, wrote and published the short story, “The Minister’s Black Veil,” in 1836. The story provides an intriguing case of the moral and psychological facet of a religious man and his community during New England and Puritan Age. The tale begins with the villagers gathering on the front porch of the Milford meeting-house to wait for Reverend Hooper. Parson Hooper arrives, and to their astonishment, wearing a black veil obscuring his face. The villagers wonder among themselves and follow him into the meeting-house where he speaks on secret sin. The crowd is greatly affected by the veil, and leave confused of its significance. After the sermon, a funeral is held for a young woman, and his veil now becomes “acceptable”. After a few prayers, the funeral ends and someone mention that it seems “the minister and the maiden’s spirit were walking hand in hand”. He attends and brings gloom into a wedding the same night. His wearing the veil and refusal to remove it leads to the village isolating him, his fiancée leaving after an offer of redemption, and a life as a good clergyman. When it comes time for his death, he once again refuses to take off the veil, and accuses everyone to having a black veil. As Daniel Webster said, “There is nothing so powerful as truth, and often nothing so strange.” Character, symbolism, and solemn tone create a theme of rejection, socially and psychologically.
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...
Connotation: The implied meaning of a word. The concept can be very complicated because there are many words with the same definition, but the all can have different connotations. For example Mrs. McIver may call me childish, youthful, and childlike; all three words have the same definition; however, when she calls me childish and childlike she is calling me immature and obnoxious, but when she calls me youthfull she is calling me full of life and energized. As you can see, every word can mean the same, but they’re completely different. I especially experienced this in writing my research paper. Often times I would develope a sentence, but it just did not come out right; therefore, I would find synonym that would give off a new aura or vibe. This can also be seen in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil.”
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 minister's black veil is a story that it is characteristic that are unique to the romantic period, particularly those who are directly connected with gothic literature. That the possibility of inner terror, and curious nature of an impossible problem, also have a lot to do with the romantic characteristic in the story. one is also the importance of individual freedom I the sense that each person has the right to choose for themselves.
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
There is a mystery behind Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Minister’s Black Veil that leaves critics wondering what the significant meaning could be. The writer tells of how Mr. Hooper, the minister, dawned this black veil covering up the top part of his face. This left his perish wondering and scared that the symbolism of the veil meant he had created a horrible sin. Many critics feel as if that Hawthorne is insinuating a sexual sin in the story, while others like Nicolas Canaday believe “Hawthorne is not stressing secret sin in this tale, especially sexual sin” (143) (Emmett) at all.
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
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.
In “The Minister’s Black Veil”, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses Hooper’s isolation to reveal the judgemental assumptions and moral values of the community. By assuming of the different possibilities of a sin he could have committed, the community demonstrates their true colors. When Hooper first arrives, they are swift to imagine that a grave sin is the purpose for the black veil. Also, by isolating Hooper, the town demonstrates how judgemental they are and how important appearances are to them. Finally, the community fails to realize the intention of the veil by constantly speculating the sin that causes Hooper to wear the veil.