The Minister's Black Veil: Alienation

“The Minister’s Black Veil” - Alienation

In 1837, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote “The Minister’s Black Veil”, and in doing so he made a new outlook towards people and their way of understanding the outcasts and the aliens of society. To help make his point come across better, Hawthorne wrote a parable, and like all parables including his previous book The Scarlet Letter they tell a story to explain a lesson.In the Minister’s Black Veil Nathaniel Hawthorne uses a parable of sinfulness and secrecy exemplified in the use of the black veil to show the way a community and a person can seperate themselves from each other even when they need each other the most.

Hawthorne creates many parables to show the satirical point of view of man and our societies,

one of them being a famous novel The Scarlet Letter which talks about the puritan society and how they are so quick to cast out of one their own because they committed such a crime that today’s society we wouldn’t think twice of. In this case Hawthorne creates a parable to show human nature and what drives us to and away from each other.
In a literary analysis formed by Paul j. Emmett, he quotes from the story “That a piece of crape, to their imagination, seemed to hang before his heart, the symbol of a fearful secret between him and them.”(45) Then he goes on to say “Hooper’s subjectivity is constituted by the secret that separates himself from others, “him” from “them”. This shows that he is differentiated from the townspeople, but the townspeople don't differ from each other’s way of thinking. I see this from the line “their imagination” to show that they think the same and therefore have the same opinions. This is the part of the root cause for the seclusion, the other part is because of curiosity and not knowing why he has the veil upon his head and shows shame for something he did.
To show where the alienation and seclusion began the author starts off the story with Hooper walking towards the church to speak his sermons when a couple of people noticed the black veil he had, so one said “I can’t really feel as if good Mr.Hooper’s face was behind that piece of crape” another said “I don’t like it, he has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face.” a man named Goodman Grey also said “Our parson has gone mad!”.

These are all remarks of Hooper and his black veil and the start of the alienation where the people start outcasting him because they don't like his veil and are starting to wonder why it's on his face, they want to know what he is hiding. Hawthorne also includes as a small note to perceive this as a parable for secrecy and sin where he talks about the reverend’s subject “The subject had reference to secret sin, and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own consciousness,even forgetting that the omniscient can detect them.” This is ironic due to the fact he has a veil covering his face to show his masked sin, and won’t tell anyone what his sin is and why he wears the

veil.
The society sadly values more it’s curiosity rather than it’s feelings towards its fellow man.

Towards the end of the story, while hooper is dying a reverend named Mr.Clark had asked hooper to reveal his face from under the veil and tell the reason why he had it in the first place, from this Hooper replies “Why do you tremble at me alone? Tremble also at each other! Have men avoided me, and women shown no pity, and children screamed and fled only for my black veil. What,but the mystery which it obscurely typifies, has made this piece of crape does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring on the secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which i have lived, and die! I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a black veil!” approaching this statement it seems that Hawthorne wanted the dying reverend to get across his point to show this is a parable. Saying that everyone wears a veil, just why do you persecute and seclude the one who chooses to truly show it, and also says that every sins, so why would someone judge the one who chooses to repent it in public and with

shame.
Hawthorne is an author of impeccable satire writing, he chooses to show the bad qualities of humans and our nature to outcast the weak and odd people and how we are bad people by heart. He believes that only the ones who accept themselves can be truly happy or satisfied with themselves even though it make cause seclusion. Hawthorne also used puritan societies to better influence these ideas because in using puritans he knew they had no bias emotions toward odd and secretive people because they all believed in the same values, therefore there would be no complication. To end with this, Hawthorne wrote the parable to show a lesson, being that humans are bred to be together and maintain a society just like other animals, but when we don’t understand someone or something we often seclude ourselves from it and block all contact with it. Here he shows that even when we block all contact with it, our curiosity gets the best of us and makes us question it even more.