Does the Puritans’ strict moral code and emphasis on the sinfulness of humankind foster undue suspicion and distrust or is it justifiable given their situation?

"The Influence of History and Puritanism on Young Goodman Brown.” Wandering Mind RSS. n.p., 4 Feb. 2012. Web. 03 Aug.

As a sociologist, Kai T. Erikson looks at history as a reflection of changes in societal norms and expectations. Erikson re-visits his look at historical happenings of the Puritans in his novel “Wayward Puritans: A Study in the Sociology of Deviance”. By examining several “crime waves” throughout history, Erikson points out several aspects of how we see deviance. After researching Puritan lifestyle and the corresponding influences of deviance, Erikson explores the Antinomian Controversy, the Quaker Invasion, and the Witches of Salem Village.

Whatever his reason for his odd clothing, Reverend Hooper's veil caused more than a physical separation from the people of his town. The people felt the veil was "the symbol of a fearful secret between him and them" (Hawthorne 256). Their fear and confusion of the minister's motives caused strange behavior and unnatural withdrawal from their spiritual leader.

The pressure and consequences of puritan lifestyle is shown in “their creed forbade anything resembling a theater , vain enjoyment, They did not celebrate christmas, or holidays from work meant only that they must concentrate even more upon prayer”. This quote shows how the puritans society suppresses individuality. To the extent that most human desires were evil , even salem foulk believed that the virgin forest was the devils last preserve. What makes this puritan lifestyle such a burden was the predilection . ”Minding others people's business was time honored among the people of salom”. This created the suspicions that would lead to the trials .

Hooper was wearing the veil for so long. The church members at first and are scared of Mr. hooper. You can tell they are because in the story it said that they would usually invite him over for dinner but when he started to wear the veil they did not. Throughout the time he wore the veil he was the same Mr. Hooper and preacher for this reason the church members would keep asking why he is wearing the veil.

In "The Minister's Black Veil," Mr. Hooper, the village minister, begins daily wearing a black veil for mysterious reasons. While a veil typically symbolizes mourning and sorrow, the villagers saw the veil as representing so much more though they were unsure of what. The veil both terrifies the villagers and makes them feel drawn to Mr. Hooper. As the story progresses, we learn that Mr. Hooper used the veil to symbolize the evil natures that all human beings try to hide.

In the short story The Minister's Black Veil Nathaniel Hawthorne is explaining how mankind is afflicted by the seven sins. The officer of the church is ring the town bell calling all the people of the village to church, when the church sexton sees Mr. Hooper leave his house he stops ring the bell. The people of the town don't like the Hoopers change in appearance they think that he has lost his sanity and no one walks on the side of the street he lives on. Later in the story the their is a funeral for a young woman and the town people think that's why Hooper is wearing the Black veil “for his own secret sins”. The young minister asks Hooper to remove the veil as Hooper is dying. Hooper is brought to his grave, “Many years pass, and grass

Gore Vidal once said, “The Puritans left England for America not because they couldn’t be Puritans in their mother country, but because they were not allowed to force others to become Puritans; In the New World, of course, they could and did.” In1741, esteemed Puritan pastor, Jonathan Edwards, preached a sermon to his congregation, terrifying everyone who wasn’t truly Puritan into becoming one. Edwards’ purpose was to admonish non-Puritans and emphasizes the importance of the Puritans rededicating their life to their faith. Edwards uses diction, logos, and personification to terrorize the congregation into leading the “perfect Puritan life”.

The black veil is a symbol for secret sin and that Minister Hooper is coming to terms with himself about that sin. He wears the veil one day, seemingly out of the blue. The veil makes his

Many people look at him in a strange way because that black veil usually represents a bad sign that is dark. Many people thought that he was wearing the black veil because he had killed someone or done some other bad and dark things. But Mr Hooper does not wear it because he killed someone. There is a Priest that is known to wear a black veil But he did not wear it because he killed someone in a bad way. He will wear it because he did kill someone, but it was unintentional, it was his friend and he killed him by accident and he felt really bad and sorry about it that he decided to wear a black veil for the rest of his life in memory of his friend that he will remember for the rest of his life. in ( Nathaniel Hawthorne 337) it introduces him wearing the black veil, and in ( Nathaniel Hawthorne 338 ) they explain the secret scene which it is not what people thought that it would be they were thinking a whole different thing. I personally was thinking a different bad reason why he was wearing that, I was thinking that he had killed someone.

Ryken, the Catholics’ viewed the act of sex was only to be had in the scanted of

I thought that Father Hooper was more successful in his duties while wearing the veil. It did not hinder him from doing the work he was called to do. He was still able to perform as needed even though so many people found a problem with his veil. I also thought that he showed the importance of the veil when he refused to take it off for Elizabeth. This was a sacrifice he was willing to make even if it meant giving up the one he loved. In my opinion, the black veil was a symbol of religion and meant stay true to what you believe no matter of what anyone thinks of you.

I grew up going to church, singing hymns and saying prayers. As I grew older I began to question what I was learning in church because I could not bring myself to view God as acting and being something that contradicted what I was learning from science. The Puritans, however, view God and religion as the center of their lives. The Puritans are extremely religious and have strong beliefs about God. Their beliefs trap them within both an exhausting and uplifting falsehood; their views, however twisted, shape their communities and their individual lives. In works such as William Bradford’s writing from Of Plymouth Plantation, Edward Taylor’s poetry, John Winthrop’s “A Model of Christian Charity” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the

If we take “The Minister’s Black Veil” as a horror story, it leads us to certain conclusions about the nature of the veil and Hooper’s refusal to take it off. If horror is something that centers upon the horrifying or macabre, especially concerning the supernatural, one can see that this story could belong. Hooper never divulges the exact nature of the veil, and we are left to speculate about what it could possibly mean. Several possibilities present themselves if we think of this story as a horror story; it could be that the veil is covering Hooper’s face to be a constant reminder to his congregation and all who see him of secret sin. It seems that the idea that he could possibly know someone’s secret sin is terrifying to the townspeople. Indeed, this veil does give Hooper “awful power over souls that were in agony for sin” (943). Sinners fear him, because they feel that the black veil is a reference to their own personal secret sins. And the veil gives him an association with the dead and ghostly qualities; after the girl’s funeral at the beginning of the story, one woman remarks that she thought she saw Hooper walking hand in hand with the ghost of the dead girl. Such things would not have been imagined if he had never donned the veil.

However, as objective as it may seem at first glance, these vivid descriptions only conceal the narrator’s personal attitude towards the Puritans. The narrator describes the Puritans' sympathy as being "meagre...and cold" for offenders, indiscriminate of the severity of their crime. They hold their heads in a "stern dignity" when watching a punishment, as though every punishment was as grave as the death penalty. This description suggests that the narrator finds them rather overzealous in their moral beliefs to the point where any transgression, however small, is equally as bad as any other. Another section of the excerpt where the descriptors most evidently display the attitude of the narrator is when the Puritans are described as being "good people" who develop a "grim rigidity" when awful business is in their midst.