Analysis Of The Minister's Black Veil By Milford Mockery

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Milford Mockery The short story, The Minister’s Black Veil written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is set in Milford, a Puritan town in New England, in the early 1600s. Hawthorne portrays the inhabitants of Milford as particularly petty, judgmental, and hypocritical, and by portraying the inhabitants as such implication arises about small towns as a whole. Hawthorne wrote The Minister’s Black Veil in order to mock the culture of small towns. Hawthorne mocks the inhabitants of Milford by portraying their concerns regarding the veil as petty and unreliable. Throughout the text, Hawthorne allows implicit interjections of the narrator’s judgement of the townspeople. “-- the instant when the clergyman 's features were disclosed, the corpse had slightly …show more content…

Here the narrator points out the unreliability and bias of the woman who witnessed this event. By doing this, Hawthorne forces the reader to question the intentions and reliability of those recounting these occurrences. Hawthorne includes the following quote for a similar reason: “’I had a fancy,’ replied she, ‘that the minister and the maiden 's spirit were walking hand in hand’” (Hawthorne 3). The previous scenario it is meant to exemplify the extreme superstition present in Milford, which degrades the reliability of the accounts of the townspeople. Additionally, the narrator states “—all the busybodies and impertinent people in the parish”, in which the storyteller directly attacks the nosy and rude natured manner of the parish, and all those in the town (Hawthorne 4). In the following quote: “She made no reply, but covered her eyes with her hand, and turned to leave the room,” Hawthorne emphasizes how petty of a fiancé …show more content…

Hawthorne wrote The Minister’s Black Veil as a parable; he uses the hypocrisy and judgmental nature of Milford’s inhabitants as a model of what a poor Christian looks like. He stresses the importance of the avoidance of judgement, and that secret sin is ever prevalent and brings out the worst in even the best of people. By pointing out what hypocritical Christians the inhabitants of Milford are, Hawthorne mocks small town

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