The Minister's Black Veil Character Analysis

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In "The Minister's Black Veil", by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the main character, Mister Hooper, becomes the unintentional villain. He does so by wearing a black piece of crape that causes him so many problems. The townspeople and his plighted wife, Elizabeth, become his foes during the story. What the crape symbolizes varies from person to person throughout the story.

When the story begins the townspeople are gathered before church. They must expect it to be a normal Sunday service but, they got something different. Their minister walking out in a black veil sets the town in a panic. It starts when Goodman Gray says, "our parson has gone mad!" (Hawthorne 274). People become scared of Mister Hooper because they think that it symbolizes that their way to heaven becomes tarnished by controversy. Townspeople continue their distasteful behavior on pages 275-277 by gossiping and leaving Mister Hooper out, all while being scared of him.

Some believe that Elizabeth is the only good character in the story. She is introduced as, "the one person in the village unapaled by the awe with which the black veil had impressed besides herself." (Hawthorne 278). In the beginning she does this by telling Mister Hooper that she will stand by him even with the black veil. That changes when Mister Hooper will not lift the veil to look her in the eyes one last time.
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Elizabeth and Reverend Clark both ask him to remove the veil. He refuses by saying, "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!" (Hawthorne 284). Mister Hooper has changed throughout his years of wearing the veil that caused much turmoil and heartbreak. Through his struggles with the veil, it has turned him into a successful man. Once the veil symbolized Mister Hooper being a monster now, it symbolizes the man he

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