What Does The Veil Symbolize In The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne is an eminent literature writer from the 1800’s. In his stories, he portrays symbolism in even the most intricate details you would not expect. Symbolism is the art of, “using symbols to signify ideas and qualities by giving them symbolic meanings that are different from their literal sense” (Symbolism). Hawthorne focuses most of his stories on the puritan life style, in which most of the symbolism is originated from. In most of his widely-known stories like “The Scarlet Letter”, “The Ministers black veil”, and “Young Goodman Brown”, Hawthorne repeatedly uses symbolism.
In Hawthorne’s story, “The Scarlet Letter”, he uses his main character, Hester Prynne, as a major part of symbolism. The main use of symbolism for Hester …show more content…
While some said, “I don’t like it, He has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face.”. Another person said, “Our parson has gone mad!” (Hawthorne 190). Although they felt this way about the veil it actually had a strange effect to his sermons. They say that it was the most powerful words they have ever heard come from their pastors’ lips. The veil had actually helped the content of his sermons, the narrator says that, “The subject had reference to secret sin, and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient can detect them.” (Hawthorne 190). The veil had actually been a physical symbol for the people, it helped them minimally understand the weight and darkness of Hooper’s sermons. His last words before he died were, “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!” (Hawthorne 198). The black veil was a symbol of secret sin and everyone has a secret sin, just like Hooper, and so does Young Goodman …show more content…
The story is about a puritan man who is married to a woman named faith, which is also symbolic in the story. He sneaks out one night to go to attend a meeting with the devil in the woods (Hawthorne). That’s where his name is symbolic, because he is not actually a “Goodman”. As he was walking into the woods Brown started feeling regret for going in the woods, he states to his friend he meets in the woods, “Too far, too far!” exclaimed the Goodman, unconsciously resuming his walk.” (Hawthorne 180). Here it seems that it is as if Brown is having a dream and not actually going to the meeting. When he gets to the meeting he sees before him a group of people that he knows from his town including his wife faith. He tries to fight the temptation of the devil, but when his wife gives into the devil he proclaims, “My faith is gone!’ cried he, after one stupefied moment. ‘There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come devil! For to thee the world is given.’” (Hawthorne 184). After this event, his perception of everyone is changed drastically and he is changed also. He views everyone to be evil, but instead he is the one who is turned evil. The narrator states when he died, “And when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave, a hoary corpse, followed by Faith, an aged woman, and children and grandchildren, a godly procession, besides neighbors, not a few, they carved no hopeful verse