Morgan Helton Professor Patsy Owens English 1102 16 October 2014 Three Symbolisms of Sin In The Minister’s Black Veil Nathaniel Hawthorne presents Reverend Hooper who suddenly chooses to hide his face with a morbid black veil. The exact symbolism of the veil causes great discussion among scholars and readers alike. While it is suggested that the veil symbolizes sin, Reverend Hooper’s black veil can be interpreted to represent three distinct areas of sin. The first interpretation is that the black veil symbolizes the sins of the community as a whole. After donning a black veil without explanation, Mr. Hooper delivers a sermon on secret sin and the consequences to his parishioners. Because of the veil, “a subtle power was breathed into his words. …show more content…
Some readers speculate that Reverend Hooper may have committed acts of adultery wight he young lady whose funeral is attend at the beginning of the story. The day of the funeral is also the day Reverend Hooper first appears with the veil. When Reverend Hooper leans over the young girl’s body and “the Clergyman’s features are disclosed, the corpse slightly shuddered.” (Hawthorne 327). As the funeral is ending a woman also notes that perhaps she has seen “the minister and the maidens spirit walking hand in hand.” (Hawthorne 327). Adding further to the suspicion of the veil representing Reverend Hooper’s own sin is his unwillingness to remove his veil for his fiancee Elizabeth. Despite Elizabeths protests about the veil Mr. Hooper tells her “even you Elizabeth, can never come behind it.” (Hawthorne 329). He lets his engagement falter rather than giver her an answer as to why he wears it. If the black veil represents secret sin, then Reverend Hooper chooses to make his sins visible by wearing the veil as opposed to others who keep their secrets to …show more content…
(Hawthorne 331). This is true because the veil symbolized the isolation Reverend Hooper endured form the community. When Mr. Hooper is at his death bed he says "when man does not vainly shrink fro the eye of his Creator loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived, and die! I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!” ( Hawthorne 332). In this Reverend Hooper uses the black veil as a symbol of isolation from God and from his fellow man because of his sins. Hemingway intended for the veil to represent sin and the veil can be interpreted to symbolize sins of the community, of the minister, and isolation because of sins. Each are represented by the ominous black veil Reverend Hoopers conceals this features
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
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.
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.
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...
Parson Hooper, the Reverend in The Minister’s Black Veil, is the cause of the internal and external conflicts that arose in this story. Complications in the town, as well as disputes with his relationship, derived instantly after his enrobing of the black veil. For example, the single veil that lay upon the Reverend’s face, disrupted the whole town, “At the close of the services the people hurried out with indecorous confusion, eager to communicate their pent-up amazement, and conscious of lighter spirits the moment they lost sight of the black veil” (Hawthorne,1042). As Hooper dealt with the backlash of the town and his fiancé, Elizabeth, leaving him, Hawthorne also used symbolism to show the conflicts Hooper was dealing with internally. Hooper revealed to Elizabeth, “I perhaps, like other mortals, have sorrows enough to be typified by a black veil” (Hawthorne, 1045). Which led me to infer that Hooper is dealing with the sin of adultery, being the first day the veil was worn, was at the funeral of a lady who passed away, as well as the reasoning behind the veil being kept from his finance. “This dismal shade must separate me from the world; even you, Elizabeth, can never come behind it” (Hawthorne 1045). Displaying Hooper’s reasoning behind wearing the veil, it also introduces us to the overall, deeper message of what the veil truly sym...
The main reason of the black veil is to symbolize the hiding of one's sins. In the story, the minister is purposely showing off the “ugliness” that he has through wearing the veil over his face. He is revealing his darkness and imperfection to all that saw him, whereas others hide there sins under false pretenses, as if they were non existent. The towns people, although ignorant of the true reason of why he ...
The story of the black veil is about a man with is the minister of a the village of gives speeches in their church. On a horrible day a maiden had died and mr hooper, the minister had to give a speech to the departed but to every ones surprise he was wearing a black veil covering his face expect is lower chain. After that mr. hopper added more by talking to the people about secret sin and that each and every one of them has one.
The corruption of hidden sin and guilt is exemplified by the late Gilbert Parker who once said, “In all secrets there is a kind of guilt… Secrecy means evasion, and evasion means a problem to the mortal mind.” Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of America’s major authors, often wrote about the harsh realities of human existence such as sin, redemption, and morality. In “Minister’s Black Veil,” the main character, Reverend Hooper, wears a veil over his face during his sermons. Though his sermons are very powerful, a feeling of fear and mystery is evoked in the congregation and often in everyday life due to the strange veil that he refuses to remove. On his deathbed, miraculously, Hooper still has enough strength to resist his veil being lifted; his eyes forever covered, he dies with the veil. Hawthorne uses symbols of the black veil to portray hidden sin, guilt, and peculiar shame attaching to sin in Puritan beliefs.
However, there is another issue that is related to the influence of the religion in the short story and that is that some writers and critics believe that the Mr. Hooper has turned into the antichrist. E. Earle Stibitz argues that the story is one of a man of God turned antichrist (183). There is an explicit meaning of the veil as a symbol of a crime that Mr. Hooper had committed and this is referred to the young woman whose funeral, he conducts because, he might kill her and because of the sin he wears the veil. In this part specifically, he became too think that he fails God beliefs and here is where the antichrist idea became to light. On the other hand William Bysshe said that the parable of the black veil is the story of betrayal, of a man of God turned antichrist (392). There is an enough fundament of why some of these writers conclude that this story is related to the antichrist. The question is if Hawthorne tries to give this implicit idea of the antichrist or he was trying to give a different notion.
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
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” Nathaniel Hawthorne conveys the idea that sin, whether it be your sin, secret sin, or a known sin, can sometimes lead to isolation and gives insight into people’s true character. The main character Parson Hooper was met with many confrontations in his literal representation of secret sin by wearing a black veil. In the beginning of the story, as Hooper leaves the church he dreadfully realizes the darkness and effect of the black veil which would soon lead to his own isolation. Hawthorne writes, “catching a glimpse of his figure in the looking-glass, the black veil involved his own spirit in the horror with which it overwhelmed all others.” Parson Hooper was so hurt by the people’s reaction and afraid of the black
The Minister’s Black Veil, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1836, is a parable about a minister, Mr. Hooper, who constantly wears a mysterious black veil over his face. The people in the town of Milford, are perplexed by the minister’s veil and cannot figure out why he insists on wearing it all of the time. The veil tends to create a dark atmosphere where ever the minister goes, and the minister cannot even stand to look at his own reflection. In Nathaniel Hawthorne 's literary work, The Minister 's Black Veil, the ambiance of the veil, separation from happiness that it creates, and the permanency of the black veil symbolize sin in people’s lives.
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.
416), while it gave Hooper a more intimidating, enigmatic and somewhat inhuman demeanor that isolated him from the community his services were still available for his community. The book even says that it “enabled him to sympathize with all dark affections” (pg. 416) as many people, particularly the ones who were guilty of ‘secret sin’ felt comfortable and/or compelled by Hooper into confessing their sins. The people felt that they could tell him everything they kept secret, because the veil’s “gloom” and foreboding aura gave him the same aura of mystery. The black veil kind of symbolizes a cover-up that humans use every day to hide their real feelings and thoughts, as many people are never truly honest with others and each convey some sort of secret. It appears that the idea in this story is that humans by nature are sinful and are all guilty of some hidden sin that they try to keep in the dark because having sins is not considered human or moral. It’s not a very positive outlook on humans, but the book does seem to convey that idea, as Reverend Hooper himself is a flawed man guilty of secret sin as revealed in the end, making him no different from the rest of the townsfolk who have their own sins that they hide. However, it also shows that humans are hypocritical by nature because they are so flawed as in the end Hooper proved that he did exactly practice what he