Sarah Rojas Professor Waterbury ENGL1120 25 June 2024 Hidden Sins Sins should not be judged by people. Over the years, the Church has been teaching its community what is good, what is wrong, and the penitence of their actions. The Church made them believe they would get to the final judgment one day, where God will decide their destiny to be in heaven. Regardless of whether this is true or not, there is a problem. Clergy members see themselves in the obligation to feign perfection and judge other clergy members’ sins to fit with their community. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story, “The Minister’s Black Veil,” sins are hidden under morality through the author's use of a black veil, Reverend Hooper, and his fiancée Elizabeth. The black veil is the …show more content…
Elizabeth preferred false morality over true love and support. She was the only one who had the initiative to ask him directly about the real motives why he had to wear the despicable veil. Everyone in the Clergy suspected something was being hidden by their reverend. They had their assumptions, but only his fiancée asked why. Trying to protect his community and his fiancée from the stares, he never explained his veil was everyone’s veil, so she decided to leave him, “She withdrew her arm from his grasp, and slowly departed”, (Hawthorne 245). It was undeniable the love Reverend Hooper had for his wife. Giving her an act of true love, sacrificing himself, so she did not have to be embarrassed wearing the black veil. Elizabeth loved him as well. But she knew what the consequences would be of marrying a sinner. Nobody knew if he was a murderer, a robber, or simply too good of a person that he felt regret for something simple. She was uncertain that her fiancé was a good person. But in the back of her heart, she knew he was a sensitive, kind, caregiver. She still decided to leave him. She was too worried about people’s thoughts to follow her heart and stay with …show more content…
However, the members of the clergy should have also been aware of their humanity. The most beautiful thing about being human, is being able to make mistakes. A sin is a mistake. It does not make it better, or it does not take away the seriousness of the matter. But, it makes it possible to have room for improvement. These mistakes are the basis of our evolution as humans grow. Reverend Hooper understood the meaning of the black veil. One step away from a new beginning. However, the clergy had the square meaning of it being the worst of all. They were focused on the fact that they had a sinner reverend. Elizabeth was also taken away by the community’s thoughts. She tried to make her husband another liar like the rest, hiding his grief and regrets. She sat down and saw her fiancé dying from the far. How different would have been the end of this story if everyone in the clergy had accepted their destiny before death? Or if they would have picked a beautiful experience of sharing their sorrows, and learning from each other, walking from the hand of love instead of
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
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
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.
Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil" illustrates the dangers of secret sin. Allowing guilt from things done in the past, things that cannot be changed, can ruin lives. The life of the secret-carrier will be devastated, along with the lives of that person's most loved ones. Hawthorne uses various types of figurative language in his works to portray his message. "The Minister's Black Veil” is no exception; Hawthorne uses symbolism and suggestion to add depth and mystery.
The Minister’s Black Veil was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The story was published in 1836. Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1806 in Salem Massachusetts. He has an ancestor named John Hathorne, which was a judge in the Salem witch trials that was never repented for his actions. Nathaniel changed his last name from Hathorne to Hawthorne to hide his relations. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825. His fiction works were considered part of the dark romanticism. His themes often center on morality, sin, and redemption (Clendenning).
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.
We take a trip back to the lovely Puritan era to understand the content matter of Hawthorne’s The Minister’s Black Veil. In this tale, Reverend Hooper, a young, unassuming, and unremarkable minister in everyway, suddenly dons a black veil, to the shock and mystery of the small town he preaches in. He becomes a pariah with his insistence to remove it, and loses his following and even his fiancee. He insists even on his deathbed to keep the veil into the grave.
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
Nathaniel Hawthorne in “The Minister’s Black Veil” is able to show the hypocrisy and the overemphasis of the Puritan people and their beliefs by engaging the reader in this short story by using “a gentlemanly person” (409) who decides to start wearing a black veil over his face. As Milford’s finest gather on “the porch of [the] meeting house” (409) and enjoy the hope of another Sunday service, the townspeople’s sunny disposition and picturesque setting soon changes as Parson Hooper emerges with a “simple piece of crape” covering his face. This unusual appearance of the Reverend to the townspeople even has some of them feeling faint and forcing some women “of delicate nerves to leave the service” (410). Even though Parson Hooper’s demeanor and his polite and gracious behavior is the same as always, and his preaching is much more interesting and entertaining, the townspeople perceive their minister far differently. As Parson Hooper continues to don the veil, people start to stare at him and rumors begin to fly, especially since his sermon dealt with the topic of secret sin.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Reverend’s wife is blindsided by the introduction of the black veil, as she expects her partner to keep his intentions clear. Hooper, however, refused to detail the significance of the veil and rejected any of Elizabeth’s desires to remove his new identity. Elizabeth exclaims, “’Lift the veil but once, and look me in the face,’ said she. Never a snare of ‘Never! It cannot be!’
There is no way to be an honest student if you have never engaged in the entertainment of procrastination. Few of the motivated people in this world realize that procrastination isn't simply pointless nonsense. It has a pattern. A process. And it is overlooked by those of another mindset called productivity. If you are a procrastinator you will already know about these concepts and perhaps will want to add some suggestions of your own. For the more productive this mindset will not come naturally so that is why you now can refer to this paper to more effectively engage in the ancient art of the idle: procrastination.