The Minister's Black Veil External Conflict

In “The Ministers Black Veil” By Nathaniel Hawthorne Mr. Hooper is hiding a sin under the black veil for everyone that sins not just himself. Some may believe he is free from sin but everyone sins, and no one is perfect. Based on him putting the veil on at the maiden’s funeral and him leaving it on and other points will prove he is wearing the veil for secret sin. This article will introduce both sides of him wearing the veil, but it will prove that the reason he is wearing it is to hid sins.

Parson Hooper was a pious, upright man who had the great respect of the community in which he ministered. His presence was always looked forward to on the Sundays when he filled the pulpit, and he was a ready pastor at the weddings and funerals of Milford; he “had the reputation of a good preacher.” He interacted with everyone in his parish, from the young to the old, treating each with respectful love and care. In return, the people of Milford referred to him as “good Parson Hooper.” Mr. Hooper also had the blessing of loyal Elizabeth, who was to be his wife someday. In all, it outwardly appeared that Mr. Hopper lived a blessed and wonderful life.

    There is no end to the ambiguity in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil”; this essay hopes to explore this problem within the tale.

The veil can be compared to man’s way of trying to hide the hideous acts of a sin by trying to cover it up with ‘a fig leaf” as in the case of Adam and Eva. The townspeople assume that Hooper has committed a specific crime, and because their Puritan community recognizes the danger of sin, they’re horrified that Hooper seems to be showing his sin to the public. Puritans believe that sin must be defeated at all costs, it’s also possible that the townspeople of Milford do understand what Hooper’s veil means. It reminds them of their own secret sins. the story seems to suggest that it’s impossible to know to a certainty if another person is innocent or guilty of a specific crime. This might suggest that people shouldn’t obsess over others’ sins, but respect others and allow them to work through their own guilt. By wearing the veil, Hooper brings misery to himself, but also to Elizabeth, his fiancée, and the townspeople, who are newly frightened by his

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.

After the initial onset of the black veil, the minister was alienated from himself. After performing the wedding, he caught a glimpse of himself in the looking-glass, and "the black veil involved his own spirit in the horror with which it overwhelmed all others" (Hawthorne 256). He would no longer look in a mirror at himself because "his antipathy to the veil was known to be so great" (Hawthorne 258). The veil which isolated his face from the sun and rain also kept him from his deepest fears and regrets. Reverend Hooper could no longer face himself and decided no one else alive would be allowed to face him either. The only people who seemed to see his face and understand him were lifeless corpses. As Mr. Hooper paid his last respects to a deceased young maiden in her casket, "the veil hung straight down from his forehead" (Hawthorne 255), and a superstitious woman claimed "the corpse had slightly shuttered" (Hawthorne 255). When the minister placed the black piece of cloth over his face, he intended to keep himself from the sight of his face also.

During the period of American Gothic literature, authors, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe, incorporated the sinister perspective of the human nature in their writings. Both Hawthorne’s symbolic short story, “The Minister’s Black Veil”, and Poe’s violent fiction, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, demonstrate separation and symbolism throughout the course of each story. In Hawthorne’s story, the protagonist, Minister Hooper, decides to wear a black veil over his face and vows to never remove it. This vow continues to the point of his death. Mr. Hooper’s decision to wear the black veil consequently separates him from society. Hawthorne uses the veil to symbolize the human psyche and efforts to hide sins. In Poe’s story, the narrator is the caretaker of an old man with a blind eye. He describes his internal discomfort when he sees the eye, and later devises a plan to murder the old man. His separation from humanity due to the uneasy feeling of the old man’s pale, blind eye are shown through his efforts to commit murder.

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

The Minister 's Black veil is a Romanticism. A romanticism is a movement in the art which sprung during the eighteenth and nineteenth century.Romantic is used to describe literature. It is defined as a depicting emotional matter in an imaginative form. As well as the imagination and emotion and the freedom embraced are all focus points of romanticism. Characteristics Of this literature piece would include subjectivity and an emphasis on individualism. Solitary life rather than life in society. The beliefs that imagination is superior than the reason and devotion to beauty, the love and worship of nature as well as the fascination with the past.

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

American Romanticism was a literary and artistic movement that placed emphasis on strong emotions. Emotions intensified most were ones such as horror and terror, as well as awe. In, “The Minister’s Black Veil,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the emotions of horror, terror, and awe are drawn upon throughout the story, which follows the events and reactions of the citizens of a village after their resident minister suddenly starts to wear a black veil, which invokes discomfort and fear into the people. As with many of his stories, Hawthorne developed “The Minister’s Black Veil” around a symbol, which in this case is the veil. The veil represents that even the people that seem like they have nothing to hide or be ashamed of do, just as everyone else does. Hawthorne also makes the point of saying that although people do have secrets that they wish to not make a matter of, others still do not respect their privacy, and may even go out of their way to wonder and discuss the subject of the secret, without confronting the person themselves about it.

When Parson Hooper first dons the black veil, and long after, the community is fascinated, curious, suspicious, and almost outraged that Mr. Hooper

Hardly anyone would have sympathy for Mr. Hooper because it seems crazy to be wearing a veil especially for a man or a parson. And it is hard to get some logical reasons why Mr. Hooper got a veil on his face. One couple seeing the veil judged: “’How strange,’ said a lady, ‘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!’”. People in the town could not find out why Mr. Hooper is covering up his face. Goodman Gray of the sexton when saw Parson Hooper said: “’Are you sure it is our parson?’”. The story tell us what the people think about the veil: “But that piece of crap, to their imagination, seemed to hang down before his heart, the symbol of a fearful secret between him and

Set in the New England town of Milford, the short story takes place in a Puritan society. Historically, Puritan towns were generally close-knit communities. In “The Minister’s Black Veil,” society holds a very heavy presence. When Mr. Hooper first appears in public with a black veil “swathed about his

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.