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Theme in the young goodman brown by nathaniel hawthorne
The character and characterization of the young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel hawthorne young goodman brown analysis
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It is no secret that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil” is a parable. Hawthorne intended it as such and even gave the story the subtitle “a parable.” “The Minister’s Black Veil,” however, was not Hawthorne’s only parable. Hawthorne often used symbols and figurative language to give added meaning to the literal interpretations of his work. His Puritan ancestry also influenced much of Hawthorne’s work. Instead of agreeing with Puritanism however, Hawthorne would criticize it through the symbols and themes in his stories and parables. Several of these symbols and themes reoccur in Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil,” “Young Goodman Brown”, and The Scarlet Letter. One particularly noticeable theme in Hawthorne’s work is that of secret sin (Newman 338). In the “Young Goodman Brown”, this theme is evident when young Mr. Brown dreams that he is led by the devil to a witching party. There he sees all of the honorable and pious members of society, including his minister and the woman who taught him his catechisms, communing with the prince of darkness. Upon awakening, the hypocritical nature of his once admired neighbors and the realization of his own secret sin causes him to become terribly disillusioned (Colacurcio 396). 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). Dimmesdale’s secret sin with Hester Prynne is admitted at the end of the story, but the theme of secret sin is not as used as strongly in this novel as it was in Hawthorne’s stories (Dryden 147). However, two of the main themes in The Scarlet Letter are visible in both of the other stories. The first is the corruption of the clergy. In The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Dimmesdale is a good pastor.
On the surface, a beautiful, poisonous girl and a preacher shadowed by a black veil share no similar characteristics. However, in the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, these characters share two remarkably comparable stories. The Minister’s Black Veil and Rappaccini's Daughter both share the symbolic use of colors, yet the characters’ relation to the outside world deviates. Hawthorne expertly contrasts colors to illustrate the battle of good against evil. In The Minister’s Black Veil, Mr. Hooper’s black veil contrasts sharply against the pale-faced congregation, just as Beatrice’s likeness to the purple flowers, described as being able to, “...illuminate the garden,” contrasts the darkness of Dr Rappaccini’s black clothing. These clashes of colors
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 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...
Texas Indians had a unique social order. Men were often the warriors and hunters of the village; while women toiled with hard labor such as farming. As de Vaca famously wrote, “children were the most important member of their society”. Children took precedence in their community and way of life. Texas Indians believed that children were the future; and
Cabeza de Vaca, like many other Spaniards, wanted to seek fortune in the new world, but things did not go as planned, and he eventually lost everything. Although he came to conquer in the name of Spain, he ended up living amongst the Native Americans in need for survival and became very close to them. Although originally the Spaniards were very narrow minded and believed the Indians were uncivilized and barbaric, Cabeza de Vaca shortly found out that they were not uncivilized, but quite the opposite. He saw that they were just as human as the Spaniards were and were no less than they were. His perception of humanity altered as a result of living with “the others.”
One of the main themes in The Scarlet Letter is that of the secret. The plot of the book is centered on Hester Prynne’s secret sin of adultery. Nathaniel Hawthorne draws striking parallelism between secrets held and the physical and mental states of those who hold them. The Scarlet Letter demonstrates that a secret or feeling kept within slowly engulfs and destroys the soul such as Dimmesdale’s sin of hypocrisy and Chillingworth’s sin of vengeance, while a secret made public, such as Prynne’s adultery, can allow a soul to recover and even strengthen.
In any novel worth reading there is use of basic rhetorical devices like symbolism, allusions, etc. Nathaniel Hawthorne viewed strongly abroad as excellent author for many reasons but none as prevalent as his use of symbolism. Hawthorne uses repetition, motifs and symbolism to poetically approximate allusions almost within every word of his book “The Scarlet Letter”. Symbolism is the adhesive in “The Scarlet Letter”, other than maintaining the reader’s interest, it also makes allusions to other famous works such as the bible, and he uses it to transition the exposition throughout the book. A white man standing next to an Indian was wearing “… clad in a strange disarray of civilized and savage costume” (45) symbolizing the linimal position of the character in the story and in life. Although this symbol has one clear layer it also has a bi-layer to represent a different meaning. The matter that Hawthorne forms epic amounts of symbol s would have formed a problem if he hadn’t made it easy to depict the differences between his concrete symbols and his abstract symbols through repetit...
Throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne 's literary work, The Minister 's Black Veil, the sensation of the veil, the separation it creates from good things in life, and the persistence of the black veil on earth symbolize sin in mankind. During the whole parable, Mr. Hooper is restrained by the black veil and cannot live a free, enjoyable life. Also, people around him cannot tolerate the overwhelming, dark feeling that the black veil generates. Similarly, sin can take over people’s lives and create a feeling of hopelessness and gloom. Hawthorne’s parable overall demonstrates power and impact of sin on
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.
Writing about the 17th century, Nathaniel Hawthorne used the knowledge of his ancestors to depict influential stories of the Puritan culture and their ideals. Often noting the hypocrisy of Puritanism, his characters embody the virtues and flaws of the Puritan people. One of his characters, Young Goodman Brown, experiences a substantial disillusionment after he attends the devil’s ceremony in the woods of Salem. At the procession, the devil preaches with a certain superiority, “This night it shall be granted you to know their secret deeds… where crime has been committed, and shall exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood spot” (44). Goodman Brown learns that those whom he had considered as the models of morality are
Wherein the French culture was similar to that of the Caddo and hence they acknowledged Caddo friendliness and in return accepted their culture and did not expect them to adopt the French way of life. The French endeavored to participate in the Caddo tribe and accepted the position and importance of native women. The French successfully coexisted with the Caddo, establishing trade networks, diplomacy, and intermarried with the Caddo. Whereas, the Spanish came to Texas with a show of military power and spiritual vigor; thereby trying to acculturate them. The Spanish did not understand the Caddo’s matrilineal kinship or the importance of native customs wherein gender determined ones rank in their culture; ultimately failing to establish a relationship with the Caddo. Additionally, the Spanish did not bring women or children with them which, to the Caddo, was a sign of aggression rather than peace.
In the story “The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the reader can infer that Mr. Hooper teaches his community the lesson that everyone wears a black veil and has secret sins that are hidden from others. Mr. Hooper states, “...if I cover it for secret sin, what mortal might not do the same?”(lines 280-281) Normally, a priest would not wear a black veil while preaching in front of everyone. This could have been interpreted by his community as an act of betrayal to God. The reason for that can be that Mr. Hooper might be hiding something and as a priest to the church to covering his face with a black veil can be interpreted as if he was hiding a secret or sins he is not trying to show others. When serving the
I chose to write an analysis of the story called The Minister's Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The story began in Britain in the mid-eighteenth century and became popular in the 1790's. The Minister's Black Veil first published in 1837, and everyone looked at the story as an American Gothic Genre. By the early of the nineteenth century, this genre had fallen out of favor with the Britain’s, so Hawthorne rewrote the story adding his own ideas and representing America's macabre history.
In class we read a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne about a minister, Mr. Hooper, who shows up one day to preach wearing a black veil. The whole of the congregation were shocked and spent almost the entirety of the story trying to get Mr. Hooper to remove the veil. In the end, Mr. Hooper dies and is buried with the veil. The various aspects of Nathaniel Hawthorne’ life and background influenced the ideas expressed in “The Minister’s Black Veil”, therefore creating the different character and their views.
“The theme of the stories has been variously stated as the reality of sin, the occurrence of evil, the secret sin and hypocrisy of all persons, the hypocrisy of Puritanism, the results of doubt or disbelief, the devastating effects of moral skepticism, or the demoralizing effects of the discovery that all men are sinners and hypocrites” (McKeithan 93). Although “The Minister’s Black Veil” and “Young Goodman Brown” both deal with the obsession with sin, Nathaniel Hawthorne illuminates the different consequences.