The Minister's Black Veil Analysis

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.

In "The Minister's Black Veil," Parson Hooper wears a black veil that becomes a "barrier" between him and the community. The black veil causes everyone to distance themselves from him and he is not able to form any meaningful relationship or really participate in the community because of this. The veil to Parson Hooper is a representation of the "veils" everyone else wears everyday by not acknowledging their sins and trying to hide the fact that they are not perfect either. This is explained in the final hours of Parson Hooper's life when he is asked to finally remove the veil by Reverend Clark. "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,

Upon learning that this writing assignment could be about any of the numerous works contained in either Norton Volume A or Volume B, I had little doubt which author I would choose. No other stories I have read this semester have appealed to me as much as those written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Many of his works seem to have a deep meaning that the reader has to dig up and discover for himself as he reads along. This challenge presented by Hawthorne is one I enjoy taking on.

“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and “The Minister’s Black Veil” are two engaging literary pieces that have many similarities along with a few differences. The themes of sin and repentance are strong in both works, but when those broad themes are broken down, the contrasting ideas can be seen. Jonathan Edwards, author of “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” delivers his message by using harsh language and fear-inducing tactics. Nathaniel Hawthorne develops his theme by employing a parable, a more subtle strategy. Hawthorne’s style is more effective due to the way he draws the reader in with an interesting story and does not make him/her feel like they are being put down.

In The Minister’s Black Veil, Father Hooper wears a black veil due to the loss of a close friend, but in society today, people also wear veils for other reasons. Father Hooper’s congregation was confused with the veil that covered his face. He said, “There is an hour to come when all of us shall cast aside our veils”. In society today, there are many variations of the “black veil.” A black veil to one person could be their unwillingness to admit their sins, but to someone else it could be the sins themselves.

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.

Nuances are words that have a different emotional impact than that of their neutral word. The nuances can be positive or negative and lean more toward the intense end of the spectrum or the middle where it would be more neutral. In “The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, there are various instances of nuances for the black veil that the minister wears. These nuances describe the veil in different ways but essentially mean the same thing. Considering that the townspeople and the minister have different points of view on the veil, there are negative and positive phrases describing the veil.

The veil become appropriate because the townspeople and Father Hooper are to attend the funeral of a youth woman.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil," Mr. Hooper, a Reverend in the town of Milford, surprises his parishioners by donning a conspicuous black veil one Sunday. The town is visibly spooked, yet still curious, about his eerie appearance and profoundly affected by his sermon on secret sin. "A subtle power was breathed into his words. Each member of the congregation, the most innocent girl, and the man of hardened breast, felt as if the preacher had crept upon them, behind his awful veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought" (2432). The parishioner's expect that Hooper will only don the veil for one day and then remove it, having used the visage to make his point on secret sin, but they are taken aback to

    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 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.

Judgement is a big factor in society because of people as a whole try to perfect them to prevent judgement towards themselves yet judge others. All throughout the whole story the reader does not know what is behind the veil but in the end the reader finds out it wasn’t what was behind the veil, it was the meaning it showed. In ‘The Ministers Black Veil’, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the black veil to demonstrate judgement by proving that people will judge others off of looks or unusual acts other than who the person is. Hawthorne expresses hypocrisy throughout the people’s judgement for a belief of hiding something when Hooper is simply trying to prove a point. Closer towards the end of the story it had stated: “Dying sinners cried aloud for Mr. Hooper” (Hawthorne 4).

it the most of the plot in the story. The title of the story gives the reader the symbol from the beginning, as the heart. Although he uses the heart as a symbol, Poe also uses other symbolic representations too. From the beginning of the story, the narrator tries to describe his reasoning in killing the old man. ?It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was

"He has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face." – Line 40. Mr. Hooper is unexpectedly wearing a black veil everywhere he goes. Everyone seems to be afraid of this unusual behavior recently from Mr. Hooper. I believe Mr. Hawthorne’s character, Mr. Hooper, is hiding his own sin due to why he wears the black veil on behalf of his face. No one knows for sure why, but I’m here to tell you.

Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne were writers of the American gothic genre. They both used the elements of horror and mystery in their writing styles, writing about the dark side of humanity and the evil that lives within the human mind. Gothic writing focuses on the dark side of humanity and both Poe and Hawthorne captured this style well in their use of themes, symbols, and narration that focused on darkness and evil with their characters fighting various psychological issues. However, Poe’s stories are told in the first person narrative and he focuses on one human psychological effect, looking at man’s thoughts from within his mind and how his behavior then affects his surroundings. He also tends to build a sense on impending doom somewhat stronger than Hawthorne. Hawthorne, on the other hand uses the third person and focuses more on how man’s thoughts and behaviors are the results of what is happening around him. His stories also tend to be more of a romantic nature than Poe’s and he tends to create stories of conflicting interpretations to share lessons of life.