Pride in Young Goodman Brown and The Minister's Black Veil Essay

Another aspect of the veil is the identity value, many women from different countries affirmed they feel that the veil is part of them; it is so important for them that “many women […] feel self-conscious, vulnerable, and even naked when they first walked on a public street without the veil […] as if they were making a display of themselves” – paragraph 22

Many modern and older short stories are written around a central theme. Most authors write about many different themes and their works are generally focused around one specific theme meant to send a message with a deeper meaning to the reader. In Nathanial Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Minister’s Black Veil,” Hawthorne centralizes the stories around the theme of evil. In “Young Goodman Brown,” the protagonist is a puritan who goes by the name of Goodman Brown. In the middle of the night, he decides to wander into the woods to meet with someone for an evil deed. As the story progresses, the reader finds out he is meeting with an old man that is thought to be the devil himself. As Goodman Brown goes further into the woods with the devil, he recognizes some people from his town. He quickly finds out that the people are also in the woods to makes deals with the devil. In “The Minister’s Black Veil,” the protagonist is Reverend Hooper. Hooper attends his church wearing a black veil that completely covers his face. The reader never finds out why he covers his face, but he preaches to his churchgoers about secret sin and that everyone has done something evil they want to hide. Based on that, readers can infer that he has committed an evil, secret sin of his own. Throughout both of Hawthorne’s works, he uses motifs, symbols, and the themes themselves to connect to the nature of evil in the two stories.

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.

In "The Minister's Black Veil", the main character Mr. Hooper, who at first was a well liked minister throughout his town. Mr. Hooper had many good friends and followers and an assumed soon to be wife. At church he gave very

"The Minister's Black Veil" by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a story about one clergyman's alienation due to his outward dressing. Reverend Hooper was a well-respected preacher who got along well with the townspeople until one day when he appeared wearing a black veil over his face that consisted "of two folds of crape, which entirely concealed his features, except the mouth and chin" (Hawthorne 253). From that day onward, he was alienated both socially and physically from his community and from himself due to his inability to remove the veil.

Symbolism plays a major role in the “Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It influences the setting of the story and it complements the moral message. The minister, Mr. Hooper, has a lot of faith and is very committed to helping the society to be more faithful and closer to God. He lives a very harsh live being rejected by society and goes through unpleasant moments to achieve his original goal. When he decides to wear the black veil, he was not trying to be mysterious and create a gloomy environment like he did; he had much more than that in mind. The Black Veil represents the thought of the puritans that sin was an inexcusable mistake, the secret sin and dark side in each individual, and he uses

Both of these stories revolve around a lot of symbolism. These stories, since they really don't make a lot of sense on their own, force the reader to look deeper in an attempt to understand the ideas that Hawthorne tries to get across.

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!' "

“Young Goodman Brown” is set right after the Salem Witch Trials and much of the story is based on the ideology of that era. Faith is clearly meant to represent Goodman Brown’s tether to Puritanism. Hawthorne gives us a flashing sign for this in only the second sentence “And Faith, as the wife was aptly named...” (315). This quote is fairly self-explanatory, but it is a bold message to pay attention to the character Faith and how she related to faith. Another description of the role of Faith, in Mr. Brown’s life, is in the form of the subtle wording he uses when talking to the devil. “ ‘Faith kept me back a while,’replied the young man,” (316) This quote may seem to be referring to Faith the character keeping him back a while, but with deeper inspection one can conclude that it references faith, as in his religion, kept him away from the sinful journey on which he is currently embarking. Another little key in the story is how Mr. Brown addresses his wife. “My love and my Faith,” (315). The faith in question is not the wife’s name, but instead he is calling his wife his faith or the holy that he believes in. The last quote that is needed to secure this symbolism is found as the devil is trying to seduce Goodman Brown to follow him further using the woman that taught him religion as incentive. “What if a wretched old woman does choose to go to the devil

In “The Minister’s Black Veil,” Nathaniel Hawthorne proclaimed that the minister “…caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He himself was now horrified at the sight of the black veil.” Analogous to the minister, people find shamelessness in their personal lives that will haunt them for a lifetime. This mask of shame hides what people think is being done behind closed doors, but it is really revealed in the light. These hypocritical acts confirms that people who attempt to judge others are no better themselves. Basically, no one has any sins greater than someone else’s, they simply use a mask as a façade to cover up their own personal demons. Everyone has sinned in their personal and social life, but they do not want anyone to truly know

These two wonderfully written short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown” and The Minister’s Black Veil”, both have great ways of bringing up the topic of secret sin. They show the readers two different ways to handle the situation. Both main characters in these short stories handle their own secret sin in a different manner. Goodman Brown takes his situation and adds negativity onto himself by hiding his sin, meanwhile Reverend Hooper admits to his mistakes and reveals to all of his peers that he has sinned and he now has nothing to hide from. These short stories are great examples to prove there is a positive way and negative way to handle not only the situation the two men were in, but in all difficult situations in life.

In Young Goodman Brown the theme is not only centered on religious hypocrisy (falsely claiming to have certain religious morals) but also on the internal conflicts of Young Good Man Brown. A basic rundown of the story is that one fateful evening Young Good Man Brown decides to attend a meeting of the black Sabbath. On the way there he come across various people who are also on there way there .These include the devil, Goody Cloys (his catechism teacher), deacon Gookin and the local minister. At the ceremony as he is initiated into the group he sees his wife who is also a

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.

Puritans moved from England to Massachusetts in 1630, so they could worship freely. Among the Puritan culture that lived in Salem, Massachusetts, was Nathaniel Hawthorne. Many of Hawthorne’s short stories were affected by his Puritan background. Some examples are, Young Goodman Brown, The Birthmark, and The Minister’s Black Veil. These stories all have Puritanism throughout them, for example, not displaying affection in public, not being arrogant, focusing on heaven not the world, and not associating with strange and or devilish things.

When the average person pictures evil, the image that comes to mind is usually one of a cruelly-featured, sneering man mischievously twirling his mustache as he inflicts misery on his fellow humans. But, evil comes in many different forms, and everyone has at least a little bit of evil inside them. Nathaniel Hawthorne is very passionate about this topic and choses to express it through symbolism for the most part. Both “The Minister’s Black Veil” and “Young Goodman Brown” exhibit these literary devices multiple times throughout them. In “The Minister’s Black Veil” the main character (The Minister) begins to wear this black veil around all the time. He gets a ton of backlash from the citizens around him but continues to wear it until his death. On the other hand, “Young Goodman Brown” is about a man who begins to see the true evil in all of his close friends and even family. They all take part in this Satanic meeting very secretively and show that they worship the devil. Both stories are very dark and have many examples of different types of literary devices. Through Hawthorne's use of symbolism, he makes it extremely evident to the reader that humans are inherently evil and sinful.