I disagree with Edgar Allen Poe's argument that the meaning of Hawthorne’s "The Minister's Black Veil" is that Mr. Hooper has committed a "crime of dark dye" against the woman whose funeral he conducts. Mr. Hooper was trying to use the Veil as a symbol to teach the townspeople that sin is part of life and all humans wear an invisible veil, which is shown in the quote "The people trembled, though they but darkly understood him when he prayed that they, and himself, and all of mortal race, might be ready, as he trusted this young maiden had been, for the dreadful hour that should snatch the veil from their faces." . He wore a veil to bear the sins of all the other people not because he committed a sin. The obvious interpretation is that Mr. …show more content…
Hooper has committed a sin, and he is trying to hide his sin by wearing the veil. Edgar Allen Poe concludes that since the Veil was worn during the funeral, the Minister has committed a "crime of dark dye". The author uses the veil to encourage speculation. The veil as a symbol of truth in the story obscures as much as it reveals. It reveals a possible sin or sorrow, but at the same time it obscures many possible interpretations. The timing of Mr.
Hooper's first appearance with the veil coincides with the funeral of the young lady giving rise to speculations. It is plausible that Mr. Hooper had chosen that setting to provoke the curiosity of the townspeople. The speculation that the corpse shuddered is an effort by Hawthorne to enhance the mystery. Similar dark speculations in the story indicate a refusal on the part of the townspeople to face their own sins. Mr. Hooper was a man of superior intellect and he refuses to answer the townspeople. His refusal to remove the veil cannot be explained as an admission of guilt. The minister has chosen to wear the veil to make the townspeople realize their own sins by removing their hidden Veils. He who knows the truth has no need to offer explanation. He refused to take the veil off because in his mind the veil is just a mere symbol and the real message is for people to think about their own sins. The author intentionally uses a third person narrator to tell the story, so the reader can never know the true intentions of the minister. Hawthorne perplexes the reader and leaves room for interpretation. The setting of the story is the town of Milford in New England's puritan society with the main themes of sin and morality. Mr. Hooper’s behavior is an allegation of the Puritan image of original sin. The use of the veil in this setting does not represent any sins committed by Mr. Hooper, but the basic sinful nature of all
people.
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
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 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.
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.
Hooper as someone who “‘has changed himself into something awful,’” just by wearing the veil (1312). It is unknown whether he is blocking something out or keeping something to himself. When the people of Milford first see the black veil on the minister’s face, they begin to question and look in disbelief. “‘Something must surely be amiss with Mr. Hooper’s intellects,’” says a man (1314). What was strange from this was the effect of the unexpected change, which the black veil “‘throws its influence over [Mr. Hooper’s] whole person, and makes him ghost-like from head to toe’” (1314). It could be that the minister is hiding something. During a funeral for a young lady, he stoops over the coffin, and “the veil hung straight down from his forehead” (1314). If the woman is not dead, and if “her eye-lids had not been closed for ever,” she would have seen the minister’s face (1314). A superstitious woman supposedly sees the coffin shake when this happened, and Mr. Hooper “so hastily caught the black veil” (1314). In addition, other details of the story seem to link him to the death of the young maiden. He conducts her funeral on the very day he first wears the veil, and there is the speculation “‘that the minister and the maiden’s spirits were walking hand in hand’” (1314). However, a superstitious old woman says this, making it hard to believe. Mr. Hooper could have been hiding something from the people, what many though to be a shameful
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 Minister's Black Veil,” tells the tale of a reverend. The author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, introduces this character named Mr. Hooper as “a gentlemanly person, of about thirty, though still a bachelor, was dressed with due clerical neatness, as if a careful wife had starched his band, and brushed the weekly dust from his Sunday's garb”. Hawthorne develops the theme of hidden sins through Mr. Hopper that wears a black veil that could resembles a man hiding his past sins. Many people do not understand or even accept the veil over his face. Nathaniel Hawthorne pictures the parson wearing the black veil and delivering his sermon along with a confused congregation including a elder woman who says, “‘I don’t like it. He has changed himself into something awful only by hiding his face'”(294). Others cry, ‘”Our parson is going mad'”(294)! The sermon in which he speaks that day is “…darker than usual…”(294), and also gives a gloomy feeling. The parson speaks of a secret sin; the audience soon relates the sermon to why he is wearing his black veil. The congregation feels that the sermon is given by someone else through Mr. Hopper’s body. As a result, the minister’s black veil is the talk of the town after the disturbing sermon
In the short story “The Minister’s Black Veil,” Nathaniel Hawthorne reveals that Mr. Hooper hides his true identity from his congregation. Mr. Hooper knows his congregation makes mistakes but they hide it; Hooper shows his people that he was hiding something by covering his face. He sacrifices his reputation in the community, and his relationship with Elizabeth. Hooper wants his congregation to know that it’s okay to accept your sin.
In “The Minister’s Black Veil,” Nathaniel Hawthorne presents the reasoning of the veil. The veil is used in the story to represent that someone has sinned. Throughout the story, the minister’s congregation wonders what he did to wear such a horrible veil, but the minister doesn’t tell them what the secret sin is. Reverend Hooper is presenting to the community that he has committed a sin by wearing the black veil, that drapes down across his face; he is not afraid to show everyone what he did wrong, and as a result, the community doesn’t judge Mr. Hooper for wearing the veil.
“Hooper's veil was a badge of shame for the illicit relationship he had had with the young lady whose funeral is described in the story.” (Montbriand) He wasn't wearing the veil because he had wanted to. Mr. Hooper wore the veil to hide the secrets he had and he did not want to speak to others about the situation. People ran after trying to force him out of his shell. “Are you ready for the lifting of the veil that shuts in time for eternity?” (hawthorne) They told him he could not stay living in the past and that he needed to move
“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
Hooper by the people of Milford’ as well as how I might have reacted had this happened to my clergyman. I felt that the townspeople acted in a terribly inappropriate manner towards Mr. Hooper’s emblem; regrettably I also realized that I am guilty of acting in the same manner. I travel frequently and I find myself, like the people of Milford, become uneasy when faced with fellow travelers who are wearing turbans or veils. It is amazing how a piece of cloth seems to change fellow humans “into something awful… (this) the effect of a simple piece of cloth” (The Minister’s Black Veil). Mr. Hooper says it best when he cries out on his death bed “What has made this piece of cloth so awful?” (The Minister’s Black Veil). I may brush it up to modern society, but the fact of the matter is that a folded piece of cloth does not change who that person is. As cliché as it is we judge books by their covers, change the cloth and you change the perception of that person to
The theme in this story is that misfortunes come to those who do not seek it, and to those who are pure. In addition, the black veil represents: those who do not have a say in anything, and those who do not have anything to live for. Mr. Hooper wore the black veil in symbolizing those who have lost or live their life unjustly. While he is trying to represent those, his life becomes unjust. In the article written by William Freedman says “Some of the townspeople are amazed, others awed; some are fearful or intimidated, others perplexed or defensively wise, while yet others are inspired or made hopeful… . Both conjure back into the simple materials of literature and earth a power beyond. They do so, as Teufelsdrockh recommends, by planting "into the deep infinite faculties of man, his Fantasy and Heart" (Carlyle 225)-Hooper by means of the veil, the artist by means of the symbol the veil represents.”, which demonstrates how the townspeople took the fact that Mr. Hooper would never reveal his face. In the same manner, some took it lightly as many live their life ‘lightly’ or joyfully. However, many were frightened by the black veil and the person wearing it, being Mr. Hooper; this represents those who live their life frightened by the world or those who live their life mourning the loss or lack of their belongings or love. In all, the theme represents those who live and how they live their own individual
The minister's black veil is a story that it is characteristic that are unique to the romantic period, particularly those who are directly connected with gothic literature. That the possibility of inner terror, and curious nature of an impossible problem, also have a lot to do with the romantic characteristic in the story. one is also the importance of individual freedom I the sense that each person has the right to choose for themselves.
The Minister, however, acknowledges neither his own strange appearance nor the stunned and questioning whispering of the townspeople. As a preacher, Hooper delivers a sermon that was as powerful as the rest but, due to his veil, the people felt a certain sadness and mysteriousness in his words. Following the sermon, the townspeople continued to gossip about the mystery of the veil. Mr. Hooper continued to act as always, greeting the children and saluting his neighbors. But, he was met with bewildered looks as the crowd avoided him. As he turned, a sad smile crept from underneath his veil. At this point in the plot of The Minister’s Black Veil, there is a definite turn in the way the people of the town perceive their minister and is seen throughout the story such as in the setting of funeral and wedding. It is the uncertainty that makes the reaction of the townspeople all the more telling of their intrinsic sin and hypocritical nature. While speculating as to what horrific crime the minister must have committed, they overlook their own nature of sin, both large and minor. In times of need, the minister is the one who is willingly called upon, but circumvented when all is good. The townspeople shun him only because of a black veil and in doing so reveal how shallow and unappreciative their faith truly