Luminous Veil

Ambiguity of “The Minister’s Black Veil”               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.   In New England Men of Letters Wilson Sullivan relates the purpose of Hawthorne’s veiled image:   He sought, in Hamlet’s telling words to his palace players, “to hold the mirror up to nature,” and to report what he saw in that mirror – even his own veiled image – without distortion

The Allegory in “The Minister’s Black Veil”               It is the purpose of this essay to show that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil” is indeed an allegory. M. H. Abrams defines an allegory as a “narrative, whether in prose or verse, in which the agents and actions, and sometimes the setting as well, are contrived by the author to make coherent sense on the ‘literal,’ or primary, level of signification, and at the same time to signify a second, correlated order of signification”

“The Minister’s Black Veil” – Solitude                Henry Seidel Canby in “A Skeptic Incompatible with His Time and His Past” explains regarding the solitude of Nathaniel Hawthorne: “His reserve and love of solitude were the defenses of an imagination formed by peculiar circumstances and playing upon circumstances still more peculiar” (55). Let us explore in this essay the solitude within “The Minister’s Black Veil” and its author.   Herman Melville in “Hawthorne and His Mosses”

“The Minister’s Black Veil” – The Theme                In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s tale, “The Minister’s Black Veil,” the dominanat theme is obviously one man’s alienation from society. This essay intends to explore, exemplify and develop this topic.   Hyatt Waggoner in “Nathaniel Hawthorne” states:   Alienation is perhaps the theme he handles with greatest power. “Insulation,” he sometimes called it – which suggests not only isolation but imperviousness. It is the opposite of

“The Minister’s Black Veil” - Conflict, Climax and Resolution              Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil” will be examined in order to determine the conflicts in the tale, the climax and resolution.   The conflict involving evil and sin, pride and humility is the direction that Clarice Swisher in “Nathaniel Hawthorne: a Biography” tends: “Hawthorne himself was preoccupied with the problems of evil, the nature of sin, the conflict between pride and humility” (13)

The Theme in “The Minister’s Black Veil”                  Morse Peckham in “The Development of Hawthorne’s Romanticism” explains what he interprets Hawthorne’s main theme to be in his short stories:   This technique, though Hawthorne’s is different from that of European writers, creates analogies between self and not-self, between personality and the worlds. . . .Henceforth Hawthorne’s theme is the redemption of the self through the acceptance and exploitation of what society terms

Minister’s Black Veil Bennett and Royle in their textbook, Introduction to Literature, Criticism and Theory, define ideology as representing “… ‘the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence’” (161). The ideology of self, of personal identity, is represented by a person’s perception of what is acceptable in their society. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, The Minister’s Black Veil, the minister appears before his community with a black veil covering his face

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil” mystery plays a huge role when it comes to plot, and character development. At the end of this story the minister who is wearing the veil rhetorically asks, “What but the mystery which it obscurely typifies has made this piece of crape so awful?” (Hawthorne 1044). Hawthorne has built up this character so carefully and intensely to this point, to quite directly state that this veil on his face represents mystery. The minister also begs the question

Both passages agree that everyone is full of sin and will one day face their judgements. Jonathan Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Ministers Black Veil” are effective in their own point of view. Edwards uses second person point of view to “point at” the reader that they’re being the ones read to. Hawthorne uses third person omniscient point of view to show the reader the different sides of what he is writing about. Edwards was more effective with his

star in our sky and a member of a multiple-star system. (5) It is about 15 times as luminous as the Sun. (9) Ras Elased Australis  (Epsilon Leo) Al Ras al Asad al Janubiyyah; Algenubi; Epsilon Leonis "head of the lion" 2.97 247 ly G1 A yellow bright giant, it is the 168th brightest star in our sky. (5) It is estimated to be 162 million years old and is classified as a Cepheid variable that is 288 times as luminous as the Sun. (9) Adlhafera  (Zeta Leo) Aldhafara; Aldhafera; Zeta Leonis "curl" (of