The Ministers Black Veil is one of Hawthorne’s earlier works, but it is by far one of the most popular short stories he wrote. Parson Hooper is a young minster that begins to wear a black veil at all times. The sudden appearance of the black veil leads to a sense of confusion that spreads throughout the Puritan community. Hawthorne uses the black veil to symbolize the many forms of sin that people have. The Minister, Parson Hooper, wears the veil form the time the story begins to his death at the end, hoping that his congregation comes to realize why he is wearing it, though they never truly do come to those realizations. In the Minister’s Black Veil, Hawthorne uses the black veil to symbolize the way Parson Hooper looks at himself and how
…show more content…
The community was scared to ask the minister what the veil represented. The veil separated him from the community. They feel like it makes the minister almost ghost like, and no longer relatable to the rest of the community. In a critical companion to a series of Hawthorne’s works Wrights describes Hooper’s veil to the community by stating that “The veil isolates him from humanity and is an emblem of his martyrdom to spiritual truth. His emotional life has been curtailed and he has cut himself off from others on the basis of an abstract religious conviction” (Martin 74-75 qtd in Wright 167). The veil blocks off all the emotional connections that the people are looking for in the minister. There were those who saw the veil as a positive addition within the community, with how Parson Hooper wanted to convey the veil as a symbol of the sin that each man held in their hearts in order to encourage them to confess. Hooper, in the end, did not manage to confess his own sin. Hooper was still disconnected from the rest of the community because of the fact that he would not confess the sin that he had committed. The community did not view Hooper in the same way ever …show more content…
In the “The Minister’s Black Veil” the story is revolves around sin and all the effects it has on others. Men have a sinful nature. There is correlation between veil and evil that, although present, may not be totally intended by Hawthorne when he first it brings up an interesting connection (Freedman 136). The veil indulges the entire life of Hooper as sin can indulge the life of man either trying to hide it or get out of it. The sin that Hooper committed took over his entire life and he used the veil to cope with it so others would focus on that instead of his sin. Literature critic William Stein writes about Hooper’s sinful nature stating, “His heart, his imagination, the inherited ben of his Puritan ancestry- all his instincts, in short- bind him in sympathy with possessed minister, brooding over the vague and bottomless abyss of Evil” (Stein 88). Stein is exemplifying the sinful nature that Hooper has in his life. He writes about the how the true qualities of Hooper, and man in general, start in the heart and the mind of the person, and those qualities are of sin and
The community was scared to ask the minister what the veil represented. The veil separated him from the community. They feel like it makes the minister almost ghost like, and no longer relatable to the rest of the community. In a critical companion to a series of Hawthorne’s works Wrights describes Hooper’s veil to the community by stating that “The veil isolates him from humanity and is an emblem of his martyrdom to spiritual truth. His emotional life has been curtailed and he has cut himself off from others on the basis of an abstract religious conviction” (Martin 74-75 qtd in Wright 167). The veil blocks off all the emotional connections that the people are looking for in the minister. There were those who saw the veil as a positive addition within the community, with how Parson Hooper wanted to convey the veil as a symbol of the sin that each man held in their hearts in order to encourage them to confess. Hooper, in the end, did not manage to confess his own sin. Hooper was still disconnected from the rest of the community because of the fact that he would not confess the sin that he had committed. The community did not view Hooper in the same way ever …show more content…
In the “The Minister’s Black Veil” the story is revolves around sin and all the effects it has on others. Men have a sinful nature. There is correlation between veil and evil that, although present, may not be totally intended by Hawthorne when he first it brings up an interesting connection (Freedman 136). The veil indulges the entire life of Hooper as sin can indulge the life of man either trying to hide it or get out of it. The sin that Hooper committed took over his entire life and he used the veil to cope with it so others would focus on that instead of his sin. Literature critic William Stein writes about Hooper’s sinful nature stating, “His heart, his imagination, the inherited ben of his Puritan ancestry- all his instincts, in short- bind him in sympathy with possessed minister, brooding over the vague and bottomless abyss of Evil” (Stein 88). Stein is exemplifying the sinful nature that Hooper has in his life. He writes about the how the true qualities of Hooper, and man in general, start in the heart and the mind of the person, and those qualities are of sin and