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Analysis the ministers black veil
Analysis the ministers black veil
A literary analysis of the e minister’s black veil
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The Minister's Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne 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. Hooper has come to the realization that secret sin is a veil that can never be lifted from anyone's life until the day of their death, and so he wears the dark cloth on for many years. "There is an hour to come, when all of us shall cast aside our veils. Take it not amiss, beloved friend, if I wear this piece of crepe till then." (559) In saying this, the minister expresses the feeling that while each human resides on this earth a veil brandishes his or her face. Hooper has taken a vow, and in doing so makes a life task of playing the part of the mirror to the people around him. He reflects the conscious and well being of each person's individual soul. The veil cannot be lifted until the freedom of truth can be observed. The veil upsets the minister's friends and neighbors deeply, and it becomes a wall between himself and his congregation. The first response is one of curiosity, which quickly turns to suspicion. Nobody can understand his motives for the donning of the black veil, and peopl... ... middle of paper ... ...ter requests that the veil never be removed. This wish will be his last and therefore it must be obeyed. Lifting the veil would not have resolved any of the feelings that overcame them. They would have to live with the memory of the black shroud along with the veil presently hanging over each one of their own faces. All questions would be answered when their life on this earth ended. Until then, secret sin would act as a separation between people and God. Bibliography: · American Psychological Association (APA). Twenty Great American Short Stories http://www.americanliterature.com/SS/SS17.html · Electronic Text Center. Hawthorne, Nathaniel . The Minister's Black Veil http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/HawMini.html · THE SEXTON. The Minister's Black Veil -- A Parable http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/nh/mbv.html
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.
hide his sin and bear the weight of it, he creates an extremely interesting and
with that of the rest of the story. It gives us a taste of what the
The following quote gives some context to the minister’s symbolic belief of the veil: “When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best beloved; when man does not vainly shrink from 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!” It is important to also realize that the veil is suppose to be a constant reminder to the minister of human sin and lies. The minister believes by wearing the veil he tangibly acknowledges his sin that so many pretend they don't have. The following quote supports that the
The same thing happens in “The Minister’s Black Veil,” except the reader does not know exactly what secret sin makes Reverend Hooper begin to don the black veil. Many scholars believe that this has something to do with the funeral of the young lady at the beginning of the story. The opinions range from believing that Reverend Hooper loved the girl in secret, to Poe’s believe that Reverend Hooper may have actually been the cause of the girl’s death (Newman 204). Whatever the reason, the minister’s wearing of the veil taints his view of everyone else around him, making all of them look like they are wearing veils as well (Hawthorne 107).
In this short story “The Minister's Black Veil” Hawthorne delves into the idea of societal righteousness and highlights how one is able to see pass this. This story follows Parson Hooper - a Puritan reverend who throws his town into confusion when he appears one day with a black veil around his face. Which he reveals to his parishioners as a representation of his sin and leads to him being ostracized while also gaining a new perspective. This story is told in third person narration and focuses less on Rev. Hooper himself, but more on the people around him. As put by Baker “ Rev. Hooper wears a black veil in order to hide his face from the gaze of others and from himself just as everyone else in the community puts on a façade of righteousness and innocence in order to hide his sinfulness from the knowledge of everyone else in the community and even divulge one's inner self righteousness from themselves” This is further exemplified by his last dying
Mr. Hooper gives this sermon very shortly after the puritan community's first contact with the veil. “The subject had reference to secret sin, and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the omniscient can detect them.”(301).the sermon given talks about how even though we may hide it from the people around us we cannot hide it from God himself. The community is unsettled by the sermon. “A subtle power was breathed into his words, 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.”(301). The people in the community that heard the sermon felt as though the minister knew what they were trying to keep hidden from others. Although the people of the community have kept their sins hidden, even from themselves, they now have concluded through the sermon that they are not the only one keeping secrets, but most of the people in the congregation, who felt uneasy, are
Every day, people are denied basic necessary human rights. One well known event that striped millions of these rights was the Holocaust, recounted in Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night. As a result of the atrocities that occur all around the world, organizations have published declarations such as the United Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights. It is vital that the entitlement to all rights and freedoms without distinction of any kind, freedom of thought and religion, and the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being of themselves be guaranteed to everyone, as these three rights are crucial to the survival of all people and their identity.
Mr. Hooper’s fiancée, Elizabeth, was torn by the veil. She pleaded with him “there is nothing terrible in this piece of crape, except that it hides a face which I am always glad to look upon … let the sun shine from behind the cloud” because she wanted so desperately to remove the veil. Elizabeth longs for him to go back to his normal self. She saw the goodness in him but with the veil he became a dark man. She still has a lot of love for him but eventually, she wants to leave him because of the veil. He says, “This dismal shade must separate me from the world: even you, Elizabeth, can never come behind it!” to show that there is nothing she can do that will make him remove the veil. He knows that the veil brings isolation (414). As does sin to everybody else because the sinful members of the congregation are left alone to sulk in the secrecy and guilt of their sins. Whereas the veil gives him an escape from his sins. He believes it is just something he has to do to lead by example. Even though Elizabeth leaves him he still wears the veil. He does not let it stop him from trying to accomplish what he plans to accomplish with his morality and the morality of the congregation. He is persistent and does not give up. Not only does his wife leave him. His ministry and friends leave as well. However, he never just takes off the veil like they all want him to do. The veil
Hooper was asked to take off the veil and to explain why he wore the veil, he never seemed to explain or give a decent answer. This technique in Hawthorne's writing is commonly recognized as romanticism. In the story, he utilizes the black veil as a mysterious symbol which can fit anyone's imagination and assumptions. His black veil can be recognized as the sins he has committed or the sorrows inside him that are brought upon him by his townspeople. "Each person is certain that the preacher has discovered his or her own “hoarded iniquity of deed or thought” (Becnel 1). The assumptions that he had committed a sin by deed or thought made the people believe that that was why the veil was always
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
He knows that everyone else should be wearing a black veil because they are all hiding their secret sin as well. Mr. Hooper feels that his secret sin is a very evil thing and he doesn't want anyone else to know about it. The people in his congregation don't understand why he has to cover his face like that and they treat him a lot differently now just because he has the veil over his face. Mr. Hooper doesn't understand why his people would treat him any differently because he hasn't changed at all as a person, he has just changed his appearance somewhat and people shouldn't judge one another on their appearance, they should be judged on their inward qualities. Mr. Hooper feels that he is doing what is good by shielding the world of his sin and part of the problem his congregation has is that they too have a secret sin and they don't want to own up to the fact that they do and admit it.
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
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.
These words aptly put the reason for his veil and secrecy around the reason for donning a veil “But that piece of crape, to their imagination, seemed to hang down before his heart, the symbol of a fearful secret between him and them.” The veil makes him remote and distant and unapproachable so that people can no longer talk freely with him or ask him questions which are intrusive. so another purpose of the veil can be to keep people at arm’s length and avoid detection of the true sins of the Reverend. The question of the veil also shows the inherent wickedness in the Puritan society as the townspeople gossip about the reason for the veil and attributed it to dark reasons.They ignore The Reverend in happy times and call him only in times of need. Even though the Minister was always present for the townspeople they never return this favor and are unfair to him. Christianity preaches that only God can decide who is worthy of punishment and is actually a sinner but we can see the townspeople acting as judge,jury and executioner in this story. This shows the hypocrisy of a puritan society as they ostracize someone without any such evidence of a crime only based on assumptions. Reverand Hooper had never expressly accepted or denied committing any sin however this does not stop the townspeople from gossiping about it and believing him to be a sinner. They ironically engage in sins of backbiting and ridiculing a person and superior to the Reverend and judge him making them guilty of the sin of pride. The veil symbolises something dark and evil.It may be a symbol of the darkness inside a person’s own soul or of a viel that a person wears between himself and his Lord to hide his shame and guilt. The author shows the effect of the veil on the person in the words that“The black veil, though it covers only our pastor 's face, throws its influence over his whole