Sin In Nathaniel Hawthorne's Theme Of Sin

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Hawthorne’s Theme of Sin The goal of all religious people is to get to heaven. Heaven is the place of everlasting joy and happiness. The one drawback that can keep us from getting to that everlasting joy is sin. It is like the poem “The Sea Turtle”; the turtle is trying to get to the ocean, but the unclean birds are trying to divert him from his goal. The turtle represents human beings, the ocean is heaven, and the unclean birds are sin. The only thing keeping us from reaching our happiness is the unclean birds. Now Nathaniel Hawthorne didn’t talk about getting to heaven in the three stories we read, but one of main themes in his stories was sin. One of the stories we read by Hawthorne was “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment.” In this story Hawthorne …show more content…

Wycherly was all about vanity; she only cared about how she looked (Hawthorne, Dr 113). She was also known for getting around a lot. Now Dr. Heidegger knew about their past and he wanted to conduct an experiment to …show more content…

The main character in the story is Mr. Hooper. He is a minister trying to teach the people of his parish. He comes to mass on Sunday wearing a black veil over his face, and the parishioners begin to wonder. They begin to make conclusions as to why he is wearing the veil, but no one actually comes up to question him. He would give his sermons in the same style as usual, but with the veil on it seemed to have more of a powerful effect. “Such was the effect of this simple piece of crape that more than one woman of delicate nerves was forced to leave the meetinghouse” (Hawthorne, Minister’s 275). The subject of the sermon was about secret sin; how we hide from them from the ones we love most. We try to forget about them and move on with our lives, but we forget that God can see those sins (Hawthorne, Minister’s 275). That reason why Mr. Hooper wore the veil; so that people could realize that everyone wears a veil, and that we all are hiding behind it. But the people didn’t get it. They assumed that Hooper was trying to hide from his sins. Everyone in the village began to avoid him; children ran away from him if they saw him. All the resentment began to encumber Mr. Hooper; his fiancée even left him because he wouldn’t take the veil off. Mr. Hooper was on his deathbed when he finally revealed why he was wearing the veil, but even then he didn’t take the veil off. Mr. Hooper’s last words were, “Why

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