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Hawthorne's use of symbolism
Hawthorne's use of symbolism
Nathaniel Hawthorne's writings influence modern literature
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In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “The Minister’s Black Veil,” the townspeople are concerned with the minister’s new clothing piece, a black veil that conceals his face. Midway through the story, Mr. Hooper’s veil has gained attention from the townspeople, as is evident in the statement, “That [Mr. Hooper’s black veil], and the mystery concealed behind it, supplied a topic for discussion between acquaintances meeting in the street, and good women gossiping at their open windows” (Hawthorne 6). In this sentence, it is clear that the townspeople spend a great deal of time discussing Mr. Hooper’s veil, demonstrating how in the society created by Hawthorne, a person acting out of character worries the people. In today’s society, someone with …show more content…
By stating that the veil “supplied a topic for discussion between acquaintances meeting in the street, and good women gossiping at their open windows,” it illustrates Mr. Hooper walking through the streets as townspeople stop their daily activities to gossip about Mr. Hooper’s change in appearance. In some way, the veil may potentially have even brought the community together—stemming from a common curiosity to solve the mystery of the veil. This sentence also demonstrates how the veil even caused the townspeople to act out of character. For example, it states that “good women” were gossiping, a negative action that may not usually be performed by “good women.” Additionally, the idea of “acquaintances meeting in the street” is odd because the act of meeting to gossip is something we would expect of friends or relatives, but not acquaintances. Above all, this sentence shows how the veil has changed the way in which the townspeople normally …show more content…
Hooper wears the veil every day, the veil and Mr. Hooper do not mold into one because Mr. Hooper treats the veil like a foreign object. In the story, the narrator alludes to the fact that veil is hiding something about Mr. Hooper, but the reader is not told what is being hidden or what the veil symbolizes. The narrator states that “the black veil involved his own spirit in the horror” as if the veil itself is a separate being from him. Mr. Hooper could also be hiding from the reason he decided to wear the veil in the first place. Viewing himself brought great horror because the veil potentially represents a negative aspect or past memory of Mr. Hooper; seeing himself with the veil may induce for Mr. Hooper a negative memory or
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
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 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
One of the reasons behind the veil might be secret sin. Father Hooper might have committed a very bad sin, which he does not want to unveil to anyone. Instead of not telling anyone the sin he shows it clearly on his face with the aid of a black veil. This black veil might relieve tension in his body that has accumulated due to his sin. In the story, Father Hooper says that everyone wears a black veil, meaning that everyone commits secret sins without revealing them to anyone. If you do not express your secret sin you would be keeping stress and tension locked up inside you, but if you express it, the stress and tension will be relieved.
Nathaniel Hawthorne in “The Minister’s Black Veil” is able to show the hypocrisy and the overemphasis of the Puritan people and their beliefs by engaging the reader in this short story by using “a gentlemanly person” (409) who decides to start wearing a black veil over his face. As Milford’s finest gather on “the porch of [the] meeting house” (409) and enjoy the hope of another Sunday service, the townspeople’s sunny disposition and picturesque setting soon changes as Parson Hooper emerges with a “simple piece of crape” covering his face. This unusual appearance of the Reverend to the townspeople even has some of them feeling faint and forcing some women “of delicate nerves to leave the service” (410). Even though Parson Hooper’s demeanor and his polite and gracious behavior is the same as always, and his preaching is much more interesting and entertaining, the townspeople perceive their minister far differently. As Parson Hooper continues to don the veil, people start to stare at him and rumors begin to fly, especially since his sermon dealt with the topic of secret sin. As the people make him a social pariah, Parson Hooper becomes a representation of hidden sin and an object of dread. Even as death knocks on his door, Parson Hooper still will not allow himself to be unveiled, in fact, Hooper finally reveals that no one should be afraid of him, but of one another because “men avoided me, and women shown no pity, and children screamed and fled” (417) all because of a simple black veil. Through the use of symbols, Hawthorne is able to use this short story to prove that the community people and the Puritan’s religion and their beliefs are hypocritical and over zealous.
Looking back over The Minister’s Black Veil, I interpret the veil as a symbol, saying that everyone has flaws, no one’s perfect. Consequently, they judged Mr. Hooper for the unknown, Although the townspeople seeing Mr. Hooper in that veil was shocking, but he had to get a message to them. “Subsequently Over the course of the story Mr. Hooper wore the black veil over his face to obscure himself away from the towns people’s sins.
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 to suspicion. Nobody can understand his motives for the donning of the black veil, and peopl...
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.
Hooper’s congregation almost shunning him completely during the sermons. Before he donned the veil he was welcomed with open arms and loved by most everybody yet after the donning the people wouldn’t invite him to events such as weddings or the dinners he was invited to weekly and the kids fled from him. They did this because seeing Mr. Hooper around would just further remind them of the sermon upon which he spoke of the “Secret sins” destroying the fake reality they’ve built for themselves as perfect beings. This is what Mr. Hooper looked at objectively and wished to rid of, the reality that no wrong is done by those that pretend they’ve done no wrong and the veil was his way of enforcing this message. As judging those that accept reality for what it is and not for what they want it to be is wrong and should be condemned as
In a small close-knit town of people of course there will be gossip so therefore, news gets around pretty quick. In "The Ministers Black Veil", Mr. Hooper decided to start wearing a black veil which may represent darkness, sin, and hiding. Ever since this, people of the town were getting frightened and quite confused as to why he is wearing it. I believe he started doing this out of shame, guilt, and to get all who seen him to become aware of their own sin. This impacted the people in many ways.
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 people in the community don’t want to face him about the veil; however, that is mostly all that the community has to talk about. Therefore Mr. Hooper starts to become isolated from Humanity because he has nothing to talk about with the other people. Then Mr. Hooper wore his black veil to a wedding, which goes against the norm and “supplied a topic for discussion between acquaintances meeting in the street, and good women gossiping at their windows” (Paragraph 23 Hawthorne). At this point, the topic of discussion between two people is Mr. Hooper’s veil but the people of the community still didn’t want to face him about it, leaving him in the dark, Humanity was condemning him because of his