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The minister's black veil archetypal
The minister's black veil archetypal
Climax of the minister's black veil
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In the short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Minister’s Black Veil” the dominant motive is the self-acceptance of secret sin. This is portrayed by the main character, Mr. Hooper, a well-known minister who chooses to acknowledge his secret sin and publicly display his acceptance via a black veil. However, along with the reactions of the congregation and Elizabeth, Mr. Hooper’s fiancée, we are constantly reminded that the public does not approve and accept the black veil and Mr. Hooper’s decision to wear it. Mr. Hooper’s intent as a minister is to teach those around him that everyone has the capacity to sin, even a minister such as himself; however, it is evident that he is judged on his level of openness towards the public and for his attempt …show more content…
to channel his acceptance of sin onto his followers. In the short story Mr. Hooper is the only one who benefits by accepting his secret sin, while the rest of his followers attempt to question his ways and ignore the true message the veil is meant to carry.
As a minister Mr. Hooper’s role in the short story is quite literally a messenger whose role is to teach the congregation that sin must be accepted in life and can only be judged by God. “Good Mr. Hooper” is completely dedicated to teaching this moral in his own way by wearing the veil which is severely misunderstood by those around him. Even so, the benefit of Mr. Hooper’s attempt is clear as he is the only one to accept that all of his secret sins will be judged at one point. “There is an hour to come,’ said he ‘when all of us shall cast aside our veils.” Mr. Hooper’s words express a careless attitude towards what others think about his actions with the quote “I, perhaps, like most other mortals, have sorrows dark enough to be typified by a black veil.” Because he knows that everyone is trying to judge him, while they themselves also have secret sin. Mr. Hooper’s message …show more content…
has a positive outcome only on himself as he accept to carry the burden of his sin via the veil, thus is free from trying to hide it, while the public which criticizes him for wearing the veil denies their own sins. The majority of his followers, including Elizabeth, are against the veil and want to know why Mr. Hooper refuses to take it off at any cost. The negative effects of wearing the veil are only in regards to the public opinion of Mr. Hooper and their ignorance, “He has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face.” With this quote it is obvious that congregation does not understand the true meaning of Mr. Hooper’s veil and they perceive it as a bad looking accessory. The comment by one of the ladies in the congregation shows that some people from the congregation associate the veil with evil but no one realizes the reason behind it. “How strange, that a simple black veil, such as any woman might wear on her bonnet, should become such a terrible thing on Mr. Hooper's face!” “A terrible thing” implies that the congregation may in fact understand that the veil represents a terrible sin; however, since the story is meant to be ambiguous the true answer is unknown.
In the public eye Mr. Hooper is seen as gone mad for wearing the veil and in result he must endure the congregation always questioning him, as well as humiliation. Mr. Hooper’s own fiancée leaves him because of his persistence with the veil. It is Elizabeth’s inability to understand secret sin which causes her to feel left out of Mr. Hooper’s internal life
circle. Mr. Hooper’s actions as a minister can be seen in an almost heroic way because he attempts to teach the congregation that it is ok to carrying the burden of your sin, and not be embarrassed by it. On the positive side, Mr. Hooper manages to keep his own promise and never removes the veil, even in time of public. Yet his determination had many negative effects on his public image and acceptance into his society, as well as a ruined relationship with the woman he loves. All of this just shows how dedicated Mr. Hooper is towards accepting his sin and living with it while facing others who are oblivious and judgmental of him, proving that Mr. Hooper is indeed “Good Mr. Hooper.”
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
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
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...
...t to acknowledge that fact than to live your life a lie. By keeping sin secret from the world like Dimmesdale, your conscience eats at your spirit until you are no longer able to live a healthy, normal life. Hooper's demeanor and sermons scared everyone into seeing their own sins and when looking at his black veil, they saw their own faults, which petrified them for they knew they were pretending to be one of the elect, and that none of them could be perfectly sinless. The horror and the hate people felt towards both the black veil and the scarlet letter was an outward manifestation of the horror and hate they all had for their own sins. Thus it brings us back to the theme that Hawthorne makes so clear in both the Scarlet Letter and "The Minister's Black Veil," that though manifested sin will ostracize a person from society, un-confessed sin will destroy the soul.
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
Mr. Hooper’s veil is very sentimental to him. His veil is looked at in different ways, it can symbolize the confession of his sins or a way to hide his sins. Mr. Hooper showed honesty toward his veil. He didn’t take it off even when people tempted him to take it off, specifically when his soon to be wife debated with him to take the veil off who was pretty much the only person who had the courage to go up and talk to him about the veil, he then rebuttled and told her he can not take it off. People around were thinking he was hiding secret sin, but we really don’t know why Mr. Hooper wore that veil, but for whatever the reason was, Mr.Hooper was being honest in whatever the reason was he wore that veil, to either show he is confessing his sins and showing that he is a sinner or a symbolic way to show that we are all sinners and we all have masks but the only difference is that his veil is
Parson Hooper, the Reverend in The Minister’s Black Veil, is the cause of the internal and external conflicts that arose in this story. Complications in the town, as well as disputes with his relationship, derived instantly after his enrobing of the black veil. For example, the single veil that lay upon the Reverend’s face, disrupted the whole town, “At the close of the services the people hurried out with indecorous confusion, eager to communicate their pent-up amazement, and conscious of lighter spirits the moment they lost sight of the black veil” (Hawthorne,1042). As Hooper dealt with the backlash of the town and his fiancé, Elizabeth, leaving him, Hawthorne also used symbolism to show the conflicts Hooper was dealing with internally. Hooper revealed to Elizabeth, “I perhaps, like other mortals, have sorrows enough to be typified by a black veil” (Hawthorne, 1045). Which led me to infer that Hooper is dealing with the sin of adultery, being the first day the veil was worn, was at the funeral of a lady who passed away, as well as the reasoning behind the veil being kept from his finance. “This dismal shade must separate me from the world; even you, Elizabeth, can never come behind it” (Hawthorne 1045). Displaying Hooper’s reasoning behind wearing the veil, it also introduces us to the overall, deeper message of what the veil truly sym...
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.
Puritans held beliefs of predestination and that only "God's elect" will be saved when the day of judgement comes, and this weeding out process of finding the saved versus not saved was a large part of Puritan life. And blamed mr. hooper for adultery for being scared of their sins. Hooper leads the townspeople in realizing that everyone shares sin no matter how much they try to avoid facing it. All people sin and it is up to them whether they face their sin or ignore it. Hooper tries to teach a lesson. In content, the lesson may be very much like the sermon on "secret sin" Hooper was scheduled to teach. Throughout his life as well, the veil functions as precisely such a symbol, for it strikes terror in the hearts of sinners, and they hang on to life at the end until the Reverend Mr. Hooper can be by their side, for he knows they harbor sins and
...r which he could breed an influential story filled with themes and symbols. The actions of Reverend Mr. Hooper united with the puritanism time period gave value to Hawthorne’s message. The symbolism of the black veil as secret sin offered a complex, but yet crucial subject to be addressed. Themes such as reaction to change, fear of the unknown, and no one is free from sin provide insight into human nature and are worthy of evaluation. Hawthorne uses this parable to express the ideal that sin is a flaw of everyone and cannot be escaped. When people deceive themselves of their transgressions, they forget that each and every last person falls short of God’s glory.
"The Minister's Black Veil" by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a short story that was first published in the 1836 edition of the Token and Atlantic Souvenir and reappeared over time in Twice-Told Tales, a collection of short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The short story narrates the events following Reverend Mr. Hooper's decision to begin wearing a black veil that obscures his full face, except for his mouth and chin. Mr. Hooper simply arrives one day at the meeting house wearing the semi-transparent black veil and refuses from then on to take it of, leading to the loss of his fiancée and isolation form the world. He is even buried in the black veil. Yet, what is important to note are Mr. Hooper's last words to those surrounding his deathbed. He tells them namely in anger that all of them wear black veils: “I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!”. This declaration underlines the meanings of the veil in the story as symbolic of sin, darkness, and the duality within human nature. Thus, "The Minister's Black Veil" by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a literary work of art that demonstrates the author's use of allegory to highlight the psychological angle of the story and characters.
He knows that everyone else should be wearing a black veil because they are all hiding their secret sin as well. Mr. Hooper feels that his secret sin is a very evil thing and he doesn't want anyone else to know about it. The people in his congregation don't understand why he has to cover his face like that and they treat him a lot differently now just because he has the veil over his face. Mr. Hooper doesn't understand why his people would treat him any differently because he hasn't changed at all as a person, he has just changed his appearance somewhat and people shouldn't judge one another on their appearance, they should be judged on their inward qualities. Mr. Hooper feels that he is doing what is good by shielding the world of his sin and part of the problem his congregation has is that they too have a secret sin and they don't want to own up to the fact that they do and admit it.