In the Minister's Black Veil, there are many secrets both literal and metaphorical. These secretive aspects are not only centered on the minister himself but on all the townspeople. To reflect the hidden sins within himself, he has chosen to wear the black veil for the rest of his life, but he reminds those that all God's creations have the same hidden sins, and therefore, instead of them wearing a black veil like Mr. Hooper does, they hide their sins behind a false front, almost like wearing a mask. The importance of individual freedom in the sense that each person has the right to choose for himself is a characteristic of American Romanticism. According to this example, “When Mr. Hooper came, the first thing that their eyes rested on was …show more content…
the same horrible black veil, which had added deeper gloom to the funeral, and could portend nothing but evil to the wedding.”(Hawthorne 7). The fear of the people attending the funeral was felt. The sudden happiness the wedding brought to the guest was soon washed over with fear and evilness when Mr.Hooper entered the room. The atmosphere of fear and the possibility of inner terror also have a great quantity of the Romantic characteristic of this short story. Mr. Hooper is a Romantic character because, in both aspects, he rejects social standards and because he is rejected by the society to whose standards he will not uphold. Covering his face is a clear departure from the social norm, as evidenced by the responses of his fellow townspeople when they take a glance at him wearing his veil. Equally important, his internal character has become the major focus of his life (his inner life as well as the life he believes all humans lead). Despite the fact that the veil contributes him as a virtual outcast, he feels compelled to wear it because he feels that it best represents his true self. Mr. Hooper has realized that he and the rest of humanity hold up a figurative veil between themselves and others when they insist that they are sinless. To conclude, Mr. Hooper can be classified as a romantic character for several reasons. The easiest and simplest reason is he is very secluded from society. This isolation is a principal characteristic of Romantic characters. The more complex reason being Mr. Hooper isolated himself from society. His decision to wear a black veil is driven by his emotions and desire to show the world a physical indication of the sin in everyone. This impel is also in line with the characteristics of a romantic character to be driven by emotions and not logic. He is so much more focused on the feeling and emotional truth than he is on logic and because he is not afraid to be rejected for his beliefs. He feels that he has come to understand something primarily truthful about humanity. Mr. Hooper feels compelled to express this truth in his everyday appearance because his everyday appearance of sinlessness is distinctly the thing he wants to reveal as a fiction. As the story progresses, the meaning of the veil as a symbol becomes clear.
When talking to his fiance Elizabeth, Mr. Hooper suggests that all mortals could cover their faces just as he has because all have some secret sin or sorrow. “Because the meaning of the veil consists only in what is hidden, meaning is lost in the very act of revelatio. It is in this that the veil serves as “type” and “symbol” of types and symbols in their general nature. As language gives a meaning to experience but also comes between the subject and any direct perception or recreation of that experience, so does the veil.” (Carnochan 186). At the end of the story, as he lies dying, Mr. Hooper says that he sees a veil on all the faces of those who are attending his deathbed. Furthermore, It is suggested that everyone wears a black veil, everyone has a secret sin or sorrow that is hidden from all others. Just like Mr. Hooper, covers his face with a black veil. Mr. Hooper has chosen to make his black veil visible while others have kept their secrets in their own hearts. “The important truth of the veil is not the universality of concealed sin, for that revelation is too long postponed to be of consequence to most of its observers.” (Freedman 357). Although the black veil is clearly a symbolic symbol , there is a strong proposal in the story that it also hides a secret sin or crime committed by Mr. …show more content…
Hooper. The three levels in the parable of understanding the symbolism of the black veil would include life lessons, experience and society.
As explained by the story, the veil that so distinguishes him from his fellow villagers strikes fear in the hearts of all and causes them to be terrified by his approach and to withdraw their friendship and companionship from him. Mr. Hooper experiences the lost connection with others. Thus, because he chooses to make his secret visible, Mr. Hooper becomes a lonely man. The black veil “separated him from a cheerful life and woman’s love.” Hence, one of the major themes of “The Minister’s Black Veil” is that those who acknowledge the secrets of their hearts and those who choose to stand apart from their fellows will often find that they are excluded and may as well live their lives of alone, prisoners in their own hearts. The veil is a symbol of the masks of the fraud and sin that separate all individuals from truly facing themselves, their loved ones, and the spirits. All individuals wear a mask, and Mr. Hooper's veil has been only a symbolic reminder of a truth that most are unwilling to admit. Mr. Hooper pays a high price for this lesson: he is feared, misunderstood, and left to live a lonely, solitary
life. We all have a mask that we hide ourselves behind for the benefit of the world. We rarely remove this mask except for special people at special times. The Mr. Hooper felt the need to show everyone that everyone in fact has this. He used himself as an example. Even in death, he had things to hide. The Minister's Black Veil is a parable because is contains a moral message. When Hooper first puts on the black veil, everyone expects it just to be a prop for his speech during his church service but the reaction he got was the opposite of what he believed. “The “Veil” as fiction, which, like the veil, is a parable finally only of its mystery, weaves the artist into the incriminating veil of his own separating mystification.”
In reality the black veil was worn to teach a lesson. The lesson was to show how easily people are judged when unaware of one’s true intentions. This being said, Hooper is explaining how he was judged and his life changed for the worst just because he was wearing the black veil; he was hated for something that his friends and family had no clue about, but believed it was for the
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.
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.
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...
In “The Minister’s Black Veil” Mr. Hooper shocks his townspeople by putting a veil permanently on his face. The veil is a paradox of concealment and revelation (Carnochan 186). Although it is concealing Mr. Hooper’s face, it is made to reveal the sins in society. The townspeople first believed that the veil was being used to hide a sin that Mr. Hooper had committed. Mr. Hooper says that the veil is supposed to be a symbol of sins in general, however the townspeople ignore the message and still focus on his sinfulness. The townspeople know that they have sinned, but they use Mr. Hooper as their own “veil” to hide their sins. Because the townspeople are so caught up on his sins, they fail to figure on the message behind Mr. Hooper’s action and
Hooper delivers his sermon, which is about how everyone has a secret sin that acts as a barrier between themselves and the others around them, with a black veil covering his face, “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.” (106). The message of his sermon, paired with the veil, causes the townspeople to feel as if Mr. Hooper can see their individual secret sins and expose them to the public, which, in a Puritanical society, makes one vulnerable to public punishment or ostracism by the community. Due to their fears of having their Christian facades shattered and their subsequent sinful natures revealed, the townspeople alienate the minister. This reflects hypocrisy in the sense that their fears come from knowing they are essentially living double lives, which causes more hypocritical behavior to arise in the form of treating their minister in quite the opposite way one should treat a human being, especially one who serves the church in such a high position. Furthermore, on his deathbed, Mr. Hooper points out the townspeople’s hypocrisy when he exclaims, “Why do you tremble at me alone? Tremble also at each other. . . .I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!” (118). Through this exclamation, he is trying to urge the townspeople to reveal their secret sins and stop hiding under a
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.
Everyone masks themselves with false pride while covering up who they really are. No one is truly and utterly honest with others or even themselves. Such is the case of Mr. Hopper, a pastor who Hawthorne portrays in The Minister’s Black Veil. The story follows his life as a minister who wears a black veil over his face everywhere he goes. Hawthorne uses metaphysical characterization of the black veil in Mr. Hopper’s life to prove that pride causes Christian leadership to be ineffective. Hawthorne shows that pride causes Christian leadership to become ineffective because it creates a false idea of control, it disfigures the proper image of man, it prevents genuine self-examination, it establishes a flaws perspective on the world, and the most
Hooper’s black veil also creates separation between him and happiness. “All through life that piece of crape had hung between him and the world: it had separated him from cheerful brotherhood and woman’s love, and kept him in that saddest of all prisons his own heart; and still it lay upon his face, as if to deepen the gloom of his darksome chamber, and shade him from the sunshine of eternity” (Hawthorne 417). He can never receive sympathy or have conversations with people because they are always perplexed by the veil. Children in the town run from him because of his appearance. Even his wife, Elizabeth, leaves him because she does not understand the meaning of the black veil and she cannot bear to look at it for the rest of her life. The separation that the veil causes between Mr. Hooper and happiness symbolizes how sin can easily separate people from good things in life. Just like the black veil, some sins can even destroy relationships or a person’s dreams. Sin can overall control an individual’s happiness like the veil did to Mr.
From the beginning of the story, Mr. Hooper comes out wearing a black veil, which represents sins that he cannot tell to anyone. Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his face, Mr. Hooper has on a black veil. Elizabeth urged, “Beloved and respected as you are, there may be whispers that you hid your face under the consciousness of secret sin” (Hawthorne 269). His fiancé says that in the black veil there may be has a consciousness of secret sin. Also, he is a parson in Milford meeting-house and a gentlemanly person, so without the veil, Hooper would be a just typical minister, “guilty of the typical sins of every human, but holier than most” (Boone par.7). He would be a typical minister who is guilty of the typical sins of every human without the black veil. Also, Boone said, “If he confesses his sin, the community can occur” (Boone par.16). If he confesses his sin about the black veil, all of the neighbors will hate him. Last, he said, “so, the veil is a saying: it is constantly signifying, constantly speaking to the people of the possibility of Hooper’s sin” (Boone par.11). Mr. Hooper’s veil says that he is trying to not tell the sins about the black veil. In conclusion, every people have sins that cannot tell to anyone like Mr. Hooper.
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).
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
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.