“The only difference between him and his congregation was that he was looked at as an idol and leader, and in their minds he was not supposed to sin.’ (Article 3, Sedaris West) This quote supports my argument that Mr. Hopper wore the viel for his personal sins. Throughout the story everyone had judged him, thinking he was a bad person because of him wearing the veil. No one was aware that even ministers have sin themselves and nobody considered that Mr. Hooper was wearing it for his personal issues. In, The Minister’s Black Veil, Mr. Hopper wears the veil for his personal sins. I chose Article 3 to help support my claim because it makes a lot of valid points and it helps boost my claim up. In Article 3, the author says, “Reverend Mr. Hooper wore the black veil to symbolized secret sin; this veil represented how everyone has something in their heart that no one knows about” I agree with this quote because this is why I think Mr. Hooper wore the veil. Everyone in the town just assumed it was for something bad or that it had something to do with the young girl that had recently died. In this quote, Searis West is saying that Mr. Hooper wore the veil because he had his personal sins. …show more content…
We all have our own sins; some may be the same as others but not all of them will be. Mr. Hooper handed his sins differently than the townspeople did. We all have a deep dark secret that nobody knows anything about, and that’s what his veil represented. For his personal reasons and everyone else’s too. “Hawthorne uses the veil to illustrate the Puritans as hypocritical and cruel.’ Hawthorne’s purpose for using the veil has many different reasons.
He was trying to prove a point that everyone is very judgmental and cruel. Nobody in the town asked why Mr. Hooper had the veil on, they all had just assumed. And that was Hawthorne’s message that everyone was judgmental and cruel. This quote supports my claim because of the fact that it was one of the consequences Mr. Hooper had to face in wearing the veil. Because of Mr. Hooper wearing the veil, he had the entire town talking and speaking and about him. It did worry people because of him wearing it but you can tell in the story that wasn’t his intentions. Everyone just started with rumors and went along with
them. “He took the time to show his congregation that everyone may be hiding behind a secret sin, but still want to judge others as if they are perfect. The only difference between him and his congregation was that he was looked at as an idol and leader, and in their minds he was not supposed to sin.” This final quote from the article I think supports my claim as well. Because everyone thought that because Mr. Hooper was a minister there was no way that he could have any sins. Which this wasn’t true. Mr. Hooper had his own sins which he showed wearing the veil, and no one in the town believed he had any because of the way he was as a minister. I believe that Mr. Hooper wore the veil for his own personal sins. This article by Searis West really supported my claim. Everyone is known to have their own sins and the moral of the story is not to judge a book by its cover. Just because someone is a minister doesn’t mean they haven’t sinned.
In reality the black veil was worn to teach a lesson. The lesson was to show how easily people are judged when unaware of one’s true intentions. This being said, Hooper is explaining how he was judged and his life changed for the worst just because he was wearing the black veil; he was hated for something that his friends and family had no clue about, but believed it was for the
Minister Hooper is a very good man, believes solely in Christ, and throughout the story we come to see how his views on religion reflect his humanity and humility. In “The Minister’s Black Veil,” Minister Hooper dons a black veil that causes an eruption of gossip in his community. The townspeople do not have any clue as to why he is wearing this black veil and see it as scary and devilish. The people in the community believe that Minister Hooper is wearing the veil to cover up a horrible sin. This may not be the case, however, because he may be wearing it as a symbol of his faith.
Mr. Hooper the minister’s is perceived to be a “self-disciplined man”. When he was wearing the veil people in his village believed that he went insane and is guilty of a dark and terrible sin. “He has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face” (1253).The author explains how Mr.Hooper would wear a mask to hide his sins and face which cause people to believe he was awful. The veil becomes the center of discussion for all of those in the congregate the mask all the people wore around others to hide their sins and embraces there guilty. Elizabeth in the story ends her relationship with Mr. Hooper because he will not remove the veil that he's wearing. The veil actually symbolize for the puritans belief that all people souls are black from
In the novel The Scarlet Letter and the short story “The Minister’s Black Veil”, Nathaniel Hawthorne incorporates romantic elements, such as beauty, truth, innocence, and sin, in his criticism of Puritan societies. In both texts, Hawthorne argues that all people, even those in strictly religious societies with corrupted standards, are capable of sin. Hawthorne uses symbolism and light and dark imagery to convey his argument.
Reverend Hooper's black veil caused alienation from his congregation. The minister did not even move his veil to perform marriages, which the town believed "could portend nothing but evil to the wedding" (Hawthorne 256). This odd piece of clothing caused rumors about the holy man which caused his congregation to doubt his message. The veil "and the mystery behind it, supplied a topic for discussion between acquaintances meeting in the street, and good women gossiping at their open windows" (Hawthorne ...
The story “The Minister’s Black Veil” is symbolic of the hidden sins that we hide and separate ourselves from the ones we love most. In wearing the veil Hooper presents the isolation that everybody experiences when they are chained down by their own sins. He has realized that everybody symbolically can be found in the shadow of their own veil. By Hooper wearing this shroud across his face is only showing the dark side of people and the truth of human existence and nature.
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
Hooper’s black veil also creates separation between him and happiness. “All through life that piece of crape had hung between him and the world: it had separated him from cheerful brotherhood and woman’s love, and kept him in that saddest of all prisons his own heart; and still it lay upon his face, as if to deepen the gloom of his darksome chamber, and shade him from the sunshine of eternity” (Hawthorne 417). He can never receive sympathy or have conversations with people because they are always perplexed by the veil. Children in the town run from him because of his appearance. Even his wife, Elizabeth, leaves him because she does not understand the meaning of the black veil and she cannot bear to look at it for the rest of her life. The separation that the veil causes between Mr. Hooper and happiness symbolizes how sin can easily separate people from good things in life. Just like the black veil, some sins can even destroy relationships or a person’s dreams. Sin can overall control an individual’s happiness like the veil did to Mr.
From the beginning of the story, Mr. Hooper comes out wearing a black veil, which represents sins that he cannot tell to anyone. Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his face, Mr. Hooper has on a black veil. Elizabeth urged, “Beloved and respected as you are, there may be whispers that you hid your face under the consciousness of secret sin” (Hawthorne 269). His fiancé says that in the black veil there may be has a consciousness of secret sin. Also, he is a parson in Milford meeting-house and a gentlemanly person, so without the veil, Hooper would be a just typical minister, “guilty of the typical sins of every human, but holier than most” (Boone par.7). He would be a typical minister who is guilty of the typical sins of every human without the black veil. Also, Boone said, “If he confesses his sin, the community can occur” (Boone par.16). If he confesses his sin about the black veil, all of the neighbors will hate him. Last, he said, “so, the veil is a saying: it is constantly signifying, constantly speaking to the people of the possibility of Hooper’s sin” (Boone par.11). Mr. Hooper’s veil says that he is trying to not tell the sins about the black veil. In conclusion, every people have sins that cannot tell to anyone like Mr. Hooper.
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).
The Gothic writers were known for their dark and mysterious works that gave chills down their reader’s spines. How were they able to evoke these feelings just by their writing alone? In short story “The Minister’s Black Veil”, Nathaniel Hawthorne paints a story using the strong literary element of symbolism and frightening vocabulary to help project an eerie tone.
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
“The earthly symbol (the veil) must be construed side by side with an abstract or spiritual meaning (the presence of evil in all life).”(Timmerman 29) What that all means is that the black veil symbolizes the evil in life. Since its black and black symbolizes badness because it's dark and darkness is bad because you can see stuff in black and what you can’t see can scary you. “Mr. Hooper himself states unequivocally that his veil is “a type and a symbol.” ( Timmerman 29) That all means that even Mr. Hooper said that it was a symbol of evil. When the people saw Mr. Hooper they automatically thought that he did something because he was wear the veil and the veil look dark and depressing. “The Minister's Black Veil” is an interesting variation on Hawthorne’s theme of spiritual isolation.” (Barry 16) That means that the black veil is a symbol of spiritual isolation because Mr. Hooper was isolated because of the black veil because people didn’t want anything to do with him because he look different. Also people were scared of him because he look very scary and he was alway depressed. “He has been very largely the scapegoat for a conventional morality the could not tolerate the existence of a public conscience.”(Barry 17) That all means that he was the “scapegoat” which means he was blamed for everything if
Nathaniel Hawthorne has written many classic books in his time period. Most of his books have some well-written meaning to them. In one of his books The Ministers Black Veil, the message in this story talks about secret sin. Whether or not the main character Mr. Hooper has his own sin or he is carrying the sins of all his people on his back is up to the readers to decide. If it was up in my mind Mr. Hooper is carrying the weight of his own sin, not the people’s sins.