Essay On The Minister's Black Veil By Edgar Allan Poe

833 Words2 Pages

The ideas of decay, death, terror, and chaos through literature came about through the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Through these expressions historical, sociological, psychological,and political views were broken down into what they actually are to the people in society. This is now known as gothic literature. Gothic literature was used heavily through many pieces done by Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Although they both use gothic literature, they use it in a similar but different way. Edgar Allen poe has done plenty of pieces that symbolize things that may have happened in his life. Its sad to say but the life he lived was pretty upsetting, I personally don't feel like he had a chance to get comfortable. …show more content…

What he has written many have not been a real life example of something that he has actually experienced, but shows or gives us a view of the way society may have been during his time period. A piece of his that shows this is a short story that is called The Minister's Black Veil. In this story, they main character that goes by “mr. Hooper”, decided to let it be known that he has sinned. In doing this he wears a Black Veil that covers his face to right above his lips, so you can only see his mouth move. As soon as this got back to town rumors immediately began circulating among his Puritan parishioners about his reasons for wearing the veil. “There was but one thing remarkable about his appearance. Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his face so low as to be shaken by his breath, Mr. Hooper had on a black veil. On a nearer view it seemed to consist of two folds of crape, which entirely concealed his features, except the mouth and chin, but probably did not intercept his sight, further than to give a darkened aspect to all living and inanimate things.” This quote is from Hawthorne's piece and most of it is just a summary of what he did, but that last sentence gives a great example to how this relates to gothic literature. A darkened aspect was given to all living and inanimate things, which means

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