In Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil," Mr. Hooper, a Reverend in the town of Milford, surprises his parishioners by donning a conspicuous black veil one Sunday. The town is visibly spooked, yet still curious, about his eerie appearance and profoundly affected by his sermon on secret sin. "A subtle power was breathed into his words. 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" (2432). The parishioner's expect that Hooper will only don the veil for one day and then remove it, having used the visage to make his point on secret sin, but they are taken aback to find that he does not remove the veil after that sunday, but in fact, ultimately wears it until his death. The town begins to gossip about why the Parson wears the crepe, questioning his purity and straying away from his person. When the Parson's intended, Elizabeth, asks him to do away with his foolishness and remove the veil, he sadly refuses, and Elizabeth reluctantly leaves him. The story concludes as the Parson dies, isolated by his choice to wear the veil with only the dying and the dead taking comfort in his presence, proclaiming that on each face he sees a black veil. In "The Minister's Black Veil," Nathaniel Hawthorne seeks to showcase the flaws of a society in which its members wear and create false facades by illustrating how it separates and alienates the individual from society, peers, reality, and spirituality.
In The Minister's Black Veil, Parson Hooper uses his black veil as a way to represent an individual verses their hidden sin. He sees each member of his community as havi...
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...o despise the veil are warranted in their dislike, because it is unnatural, shocking, and sudden. For them to react any other way would be odd. All but Elizabeth fail to ask him to remove the veil as well as the deeper meaning behind it. Sow could they expect him to yield to demands they themselves never voiced? Perhaps if the veil bothered his parishioners so greatly, they would have become more proactive in revealing their secret sins and thus relieved the Parson of his burden. Neither side is per say 'right', but it is important to note that the Parson acted out of desire to help the parishioners while the parishioners didn't truly act at all.
Works Cited
Lauter, Paul, Richard Yarborough, and John Alberti. "The Minister's Black Veil." The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Vol. B. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Pub., 2009. 2431-439. Print.
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
The minister’s friends and neighbors are so upset by the veil because the veil becomes a wall between himself and his congregation. The first response is one of curiosity which then turns in suspicion. They cannot understand the meaning for the wearing of the black veil and in turn the people become very uncomfortable around him. The veil and it color ...
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” The black veil Mr.hooper puts on is to prevent people from spying on his private life. The veil symbolized that human nature is blinded by sins and they way the town treated him after he started wearing the veil shows that there faith is blind they couldn't understand where he was coming from. “ Mr. Hooper's conscience tortured him for some great crime too horrible to be entirely concealed, or otherwise than so obscurely intimated. Thus, from beneath the black veil, there rolled a cloud into the sunshine, an ambiguity of sin or sorrow, which
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
People speculate why he is wearing the black veil. Eventually, people quit talking to him and they quit viewing him as a leader. At one point, Parson Hooper had friends, and now he is going to die alone. His lover, Elizabeth leaves him, because he refuses to take the veil off. The plot to the story is that Parson Hooper tries to overcome the gossiping of the town, and make people accept him. However, his plan backfires and they reject him.
"All within hearing immediately turned about, and beheld the semblance of Mr. Hooper, pacing slowly his meditative way towards the meeting-house. With one accord they started, expressing more wonder than if some strange minister were coming to dust the cushions of Mr. Hooper’s pulpit·" Working in the realm of the Gothic, Nathaniel Hawthorne hits upon psychological points that few of his readers are willing to explore. Of course, one may not be able to relate to an example involving such an "eccentric" display as Mr. Hooper’s. There is a sudden hush throughout the audience, followed by a rush of low whispering. He walks past them, oblivious to the goings-on and proceeds to the front. Something has changed, and everyone is aware. It is painfully obvious that he wanted everyone to know, for the wounds of the change were self-inflicted· Putting the scenario this way helps to give an anonymous and general view to the former example. This method is used to show how realistic, even common, this somewhat absurd event may actually be. In a psychological analysis, this is a necessary element in both de-personalizing a situation and giving it potential for universal application. In Hawthorne’s "The Minister’s Black Veil," many interpretations by way of psychological analysis are possible, and, once exposed, quite apparent. Once revealed, there are many routes for understanding the story in a psychoanalytical context. The main approaches this essay will take involve a "Jungian" analysis, that is, one involving the use of some of the theories and conclusions of German psychoanalyst and pioneer, Carl Gustav Jung, a former student and friend of Sigmund Freud, in interpreting the actions of the characters in the story. Jung’s discord with Fr...
Their inability to show Hooper compassion when he refused to explain what the black veil signified led to their human nature and judgemental tendencies taking over. Goodman Gray, a self-proclaimed friend of Mr. Hooper made sure to voice his disdain saying, “Our Parson has gone mad!” The veil truly did reveal the character of the town’s people, by their snickering, fear, and rumors. Besides the townspeople letting their fears take over Parson Hooper’s own fiancée was driven away and let the veil come between her love. At one point she realized the separation the black veil had caused between her and her lover and was described as “fixed insensibly on the black veil, when, like a sudden twilight in the air, its terrors fell around her.” Although she was in love with him she was unable to see past the veil both literally and figuratively and felt his secrets were too monumental. Lastly, on his deathbed, Father Hooper finally explained the veil by bringing their secret sins out into the open. He had been a victim of some of their sins and said, “ Tremble also at each other! Have men avoided me, and women shown no pity, and children screamed and fled, only for my black veil?...I look around me and lo!on every visage a Black veil!” When fear and uncertainty take the forefront of a person’s decision making because of what they perceive to be wrong or sinful, it can isolate the victim if deemed by the majority as
The Minister’s Black Veil, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1836, is a parable about a minister, Mr. Hooper, who constantly wears a mysterious black veil over his face. The people in the town of Milford, are perplexed by the minister’s veil and cannot figure out why he insists on wearing it all of the time. The veil tends to create a dark atmosphere where ever the minister goes, and the minister cannot even stand to look at his own reflection. In Nathaniel Hawthorne 's literary work, The Minister 's Black Veil, the ambiance of the veil, separation from happiness that it creates, and the permanency of the black veil symbolize sin in people’s lives.
The veil upsets the minister's friends and neighbors deeply, and it becomes a wall between himself and his congregation. The first response is one of curiosity, which quickly turns into suspicion. Nobody can understand his motives for the donning of the black veil, and people become quite weary and uncomfortable around him.... ... middle of paper ...
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 Minister's Black Veil" is an allegorical narrative in which the agents of setting, symbols, characters, and actions come in a coherent way to represent non-literal and metaphorical meanings about the human character. The black veil is without doubt the most important symbol used in the story. It comes to represent the darkness and duality of human nature, adding thereby a certain undeniable psychoanalytical angle to the short story. The black veil represents the sin that all men carry secretively within their heart as M...
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).
It is the uncertainty of the reason that makes the reactions of the townsfolk all more telling about who they really are. Many people are quite shocked to see the minister presented in such a way. One older woman says, "He has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face." Others agree that he is indeed quite disturbing to look at due to his new attire, although still remaining to be a polite and well mannered individual. While coming to their own conclusions as to why Mr. Hooper is wearing the veil, the townsfolk overlook their own crimes and sins.
Voigt, Gilbert. "The Meaning of "The Minister's Black Veil."College English. 13.6 (1952): 337-38. Web. 29 Apr. 2012. .