Essay Nathaniel Hawthorne

The black veil represents, covering the face in shame. Reverend Hooper enters the church with a black veil over his face, causing quite a disturbance among his congregation. He preached a sermon on secret sin and what we hide from those closest to us. The Reverend Clark tries to talk Hooper, on his deathbed, to take the veil off. He claimed it was a sign of his sadness and refused. The phrase “He has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face” (338). The Reverend Hooper points out on his deathbed that the only difference between himself and the people is that they conceal their sins.

In the short story, "The Minister's Black Veil," Nathaniel Hawthorne presents a similar theme to that of The Scarlet Letter through the usage of the black veil that the Reverend Mr. Hooper drapes across his face to hide his secret transgressions from the world. The veil the clergyman wears is voluntary punishment, in contrast to the scarlet letter that Hester was forced to wear, though it's consequences are similar for Reverend Hooper, as he becomes an outcast of society as well. Though everyone knows Hester's sin, no one can even find the courage to ask Father Hooper why he wears his veil. When his wife, Elizabeth, finally does ask him, he gives her no clear answer and thus the veil's meaning is ambiguous and the townspeople all have their different theories for it including sin, sorrow, and weak eyes; though most fingers pointed towards a secret sin. The ambiguity of the black veil is similar to the ambiguity of the scarlet letter. At first the letter stood for the sin of adultery

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4th, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts. His ancestors were comprised of businessmen, judges, and seamen, all who were Puritans with a strict religious discipline. His father died while

Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil" embodies the hidden sins that we all hide and that in turn distance us from the ones we love most. Reverend Hooper dons a black veil throughout this story, and never takes it off. He has discerned in everyone a dark, hidden self of secret sin. In wearing the veil Hooper dramatizes the isolation that each person experiences when they are chained down by their own sinful deeds. He has realizes that symbolically everyone can be found in the shadow of their own dark veil. Hooper in wearing this shroud across his face is only amplifying the dark side of people and the truth of human existence and nature.

Hooper evil although he was the same person behind the veil. All the people in town already see the veil related to the devil or something gloomy like him, yet Mr. Hooper does not give up his goal and uses it to teach a lesson impacting people’s lives.

In reality the veil represents the secrets everyone is hiding within themselves. The unifying theme is the conflict between the dark, hidden side of man and the standards imposed by his puritanical heritage. Hawthorne brings evil and unauthorized desire into the way of puritan life, and in so doing suggests a insightful truth that is disturbing in its implication, that is to say that we can never hope to know each other's true selves. The themes in the story are suggested by the veil-symbol, the tension between the minister and the community. Every person has something to hide from the world. The veil is symbolic for the cover up of peoples secrets. Although most people would not wear a veil, the minister is proving a point. By wearing a simple black veil Mr. Hooper is making all the villagers evaluate their everyday actions in life. The symbolic value of the black veil lies in the physical and mental dilemma that it creates between the minister and his environment, and the guilt it conveys. Many people believe that the face provides information about a person's primary characteristics, therefore, predicting a persons possible behavior. As a result, by

Transformation in the story establishes the theme of person vs society with symbolism through the use of the black veil. Mr. Hooper goes to his church one day to give his sermon as usual, but he has one thing different about him he is wearing a black veil upon his head. The veil covers his eyes down but left his chin and lips reveled. This piece of cloth gives the preacher a different type of vibe at his church. The towns are displeased with his new appearance, but the veil gives him a different presence behind the podium. He could sympathize with dark affections and people travel far distances to watch him preach. The veil transformed his reputation and appearance, but it also changed who he was on the inside. After putting on the veil his life changed completely he was no longer approachable to the outside world. The veil gave him a shroud of darkness pushing everyone away. He became a man devoted to bearing the burden of the secret sin. His plighted wife made an attempt to get under the veil but Mr. Hooper cast her away for a life of secrecy. He begged her not to leave him and all she asked of

He would never be able to see the entire picture of the world as the others in his class and in his life see it. This veil served as a film over his vision and in a way, it acted as a prison which he could never escape. Perhaps the thought of being in the veil prison could continue back into history when his ancestors were slaves in their own prison. This veil not only symbolized his own imprisonment, but also how the general population saw him. They never saw the whole picture, for they only saw the outside and never took the time to lift the veil and understand what lay beneath. In both situations, there are no bars or brick walls to be found, rather a higher power accounted for their solitude.

They also seek to show how this facade separates and alienates you from society, peers, reality, and spirituality. " 'Have patience with me, Elizabeth!' cried he, passionately. 'Do not desert me, though this veil must be between us here on earth. Be mine, and hereafter there shall be no veil over my face, no darkness between our souls! It is but a mortal veil--it is not for eternity! O! You know not how lonely I am, and how frightened, to be alone behind my black veil. Do not leave me in this miserable obscurity forever!' 'Lift the veil but once, and look me in the face,' said she.'Never! It cannot be!' replied Mr. Hooper." " 'Tremble also at each other! Have men avoided me, and women shown no pity, and children screamed and fled, only for my black veil? What, but the mystery which it obscurely typifies, has made this piece of crape so awful? When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best beloved; when man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived, and die! I look around me, and, lo! On every visage a Black Veil!' "

The main character of “Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a thirty-years-old parson Hooper who is wearing a black veil on his face. It does not seem much fun but more like it is strange and revolting to people in the story that parson Hooper is having a veil on the face. Why would the parson wear a veil?

Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of the most important authors in the history of American literature and the genre of Romanticism or Dark Romanticism, due to his unique style of writing and his focus upon subjects of Puritan religion and the unknown. I consider Hawthorne an important author, due to the fact that he skillfully and accurately based his fictional writings upon happenings of colonial times, was one of the first authors to display unfortunate outcomes for his characters’ immoral choices according to Puritan beliefs, and wrote of things that were considered taboo in his time, such as witchcraft, scientific innovation and experimentation. I strongly believe that Hawthorne’s influence for his writings were his Puritan ancestral background, his fascination with Puritan beliefs, and his interest in what was considered the unknown such as witchcraft and science. According to the Norton Anthology Textbook Vol. B, Nathaniel Hawthorne was “born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804” (370). Hawthorne belonged “to a family whose ancestral roots were tied to Puritan history, with his family being among the first settlers of Massachusetts and having one of his relatives serve as a judge during the Salem witch trials” (370). Hawthorne, as a young boy, “had a particular interest in writings such as John Bunyan’s Puritan allegory The Pilgrim’s Progress, and by his mid-teens he took interest in British novelists such as Henry Fielding, Tobias Smollet, William Godwin, and Sir Walter Scott”

The community is not certain of Mr. Hooper’s true intentions of the black veil but he is still feared as shown when the narrator says, “Yet perhaps the pale-faced congregation was almost as fearful a sight to the minister as his black veil to them.” (pg.473).

Moreover, the symbol of secret sin also appears in “The Minister’s Black Veil.” When the people of the town first saw Mr. Hooper wearing the black veil, they were all wondering why he would wear such thing. To Mr. Hooper, the black veil means deceit and sins to those who can not separate themselves from their sins. One example is when he is wearing the black veil to the wedding, and everyone is kind of skeptic about why he is wearing it but in reality, he wore it to remind everyone of their sins. Because of this, people call him evil, and he soon became an outcast. The black veil can also represent his own sin that he committed in the past in which he can never forgive himself. Symbols for secret sin are once again used in Nathanial Hawthorne’s works.

The veil covers people’s ability to see the whole idea of something, and according to Miranda’s mother, the veil blurs the world. People are not able to see the world clearly. Ms. Sinclair said that when someone’s veil is lifted for a moment of time, they are exposed to the grand scheme of things. They see things how they really are, not just a blurry picture. Ms. Sinclair said people are happy not to see the big picture because of the intensity of it. These big pictures show how cruel the real world truly is. This metaphor is displayed in various ways throughout the novel to convey a significant theme.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts. Hawthorne was born into a family of New England Puritans. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ancestors were businessmen, judges, and seamen who were infamous in the history of Puritans. Nathaniel’s father was sea captain, who died four years after Nathaniel was born. Hawthorne’s love for reading and writing stemmed from a leg injury that forced him to little activity.