Till We Have Faces Character Analysis

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.

Olivia is mourning the death of her brother. Instead of grieving, Duke Orsino listens to his own desires of what he wants instead of listing to what Olivia has to say.

The play opens with Orsino, the Duke of Illyria, expressing his deep love for the Countess Olivia. Meanwhile, the shipwrecked Viola disguises herself as a man and endeavors to enter the Duke’s service. Although she has rejected his suit, the Duke then employs Viola, who takes the name of Cesario, to woo Olivia for him. As the

In Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis uses symbolism to portray character traits of Orual to the reader. Once Orual has received her fate from the gods, that she shall also be Psyche, she made the faint decision to veil herself. She believes it will work to protect her from the fate of the gods and she realizes that she is able to act in different ways and get more things done than she was previously. Lewis uses the presence of the veil to reveal the many qualities of Orual, like her purity, gender, and her insecurities. The veil helps to affect the transformation of Orual to the queen and works to reveal more internal character traits.

The book is titled "Till We Have Faces" because the moral of the story is to overcome who you think you are to acknowledge who you really are. In order to find beauty and happiness, you have to possess self-knowledge to fully grasp the essence of the gods. In particular, Orual was reluctant to accept her grief and insecurities, hiding them along with her identity with her veil. It was only until she experienced visions she realized she was selfish and bitter. Because of this newfound understanding, she was able to finally comprehend the gods' nature, gifting her with the joyful beauty of Psyche. Orual's veil she wore was symbolic of her refusing to accept her actual self by hiding her face. Once she admitted her flaws to the gods, her figurative

Orual says she had suffered much at the hands of the gods, but what most torments her is the loss of her previous sister Istra (Psyche), in which loss Orual shares responsibility and blame: this loss of Psyche results primarily from Orual’s jealously and rage at the gulf dividing herself

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 Minister’s Black Veil” seems like a moral allegory. Not just the veil but the act of wearing it is important. The veil also alienates the parson from people.

The significance of Orual wanting to be someone else is that she is trying to escape the gods and the punishment that they might have for her. “There is no escape from them into sleep or madness, for they can pursue you into them with dreams... The nearest thing we have to a defense against them (but

A positive nuance of the veil is at the end of the story where the townspeople describe the veil as a “sable veil” (line 370). Although sable

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.

Truly, the main theme in this loosely-contained chaos of a play is adopting roles and identities through outward dress. Viola hides in plain sight in Orsino’s court as the young page Cesario. Main point of paragraph: Viola is in disguise, yes. But how much of this disguise is put-on versus how much is truly her? Ok, what does that mean. The idea that you must dress up to take on a role is very prominent in this play. The most obvious example is Viola herself, as she asks the captain for (feste dressing up to become Curate Topas Sir Topas, even though he didn’t need to…

The idea of tension between old and new is critical when it comes to the veil. The best example of this is when Satrapi says “We didn’t like to wear the veil, especially when we didn’t understand why we had to” (Persepolis 3). The children grew up in a time where they never had to wear the veil. One detail that is noteworthy in the picture there is a little girl that is “strangling” a girl who is not wearing the veil, chanting “Execution in the name of freedom, ” demonstrating the conflict between the old and the new.

One of the most important symbols throughout Persepolis was the veil because it largely symbolizes Marjane satrapi's coming of age. It symbolizes this because as a year old child she gets it the first time she doesn't understand why so she plays with it. As a child many of the schoolchildren play games and don't take it serious. It was just given to her by the teacher in 1980. At that time under the new rule it became an obligation for girls to wear them to school. The veil wasn't introduced to them at this time and separated both genders. Marjane didn't like this and it seemed unfair to her that all of her friend now had to become separated. However this was only the very beginning of the events to come.