Minister's Black Veil Sacrifice

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In the short story “The Minister’s Black Veil,” Hawthorne introduces Mr.Hooper as a minister in the Puritan time who is wearing a black veil. In the beginning of the short story, the minister is being judges on a daily basis by the townspeople and eventually dies. Despite how bad the people want Mr.Hooper to remove the veil, he continues to hide his sins behind it. Rverend Hooper is sacrificing everything wearing the black in order to conceal his sin. The prompt asks to analyze and tell how the sacrifice illuminates the character’s values. In the beginning of the story, Hawthorne introduce a sinful man by the name of Reverend Hooper. Reverend Hooper was the town minister, but was wearing a black veil to hide his sins from the people. “There was but on thing remarkable in 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” (Hawthorne 27). In the textual evidence, Hawthorne is describing what Mr.Hooper had on his face as he entered the Milford meeting-house. In conclusion, Mr.Hooper is wearing the black veil to hide his sins, but he also makes some sacrifices. …show more content…

In the critical essay “The Minister’s Black Veil’ and Hawthorne’s Ethical Refusal of Reciprocity: A Levinasian Parable,” Boone, N.S. explains the significance of the black veil. Boone continues to add how the people judged him because he was wearing the veil. To summarize the first secodary source up, it is stating how important the black veil is to Mr.Hooper because it conceals his sin from the townspeople. As can be seen, Mr.Hooper conceals his sin by wearing the black veil and it demolished his

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    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

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