Double Meanings In The Scarlet Letter And The Minister's Black Veil By Nathaniel Hawthorne

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a very well-known author in the mid-1800s. The manuscript that made him famous was the novel, “The Scarlet Letter.” Which was officially published in the year of 1850 along with two of his other very successful stories, “Young Goodman Brown.” And “The Minister’s Black Veil.” Hawthorne’s books became very popular in the year that it was published and has managed to remain extremely popular now, high school and college students are currently required to read his work today. Hawthorne was known to have double meanings in his stories, the physical objects in his stories, “The Scarlet Letter.”, “Young Goodman Brown.” And “The Minster’s Black Veil.” All have some specific type of symbolic reasoning. The Scarlet Letter is

Hester is penalized for her sin by being imprisoned and being forced to walk in the town carrying her baby, Pearl, while having to stand up on a scaffold to be heavily scorned by all the townspeople. Another part of Hester’s punishment was having to be required to wear a large scarlet red “A” to show everyone her sin. While Hester is up on the scaffold the crowd demands to know who the biological father of the child is, but Hester refuses to give any information to the townspeople about the father. Eventually, the father is revealed, the biological father of Pearl is revealed to be the high priest of the village, Revered Dimmesdale. Hester was through tolerating the cruel treatment towards herself and her child, Hester and Dimmesdale then make a plan of action to run away from the village so they would have the ability to start over and no longer keep their secret love in the shadows. However, right before they are on the verge of making an escape from the village Dimmesdale publicly confesses his sin and suddenly dies from the sickness because Hester’s husband, Roger Chillingworth poisoned him. During the story, Hawthorne uses symbolism through numerous physical

On one Sabbath, Rev. Hooper preaches a sermon while wearing a black veil. Instantly, speculations started to circulate throughout the church about Rev. Hooper. While the minister wore the veil while giving the eulogy of a young girl rumors were drifting throughout the church that the reason the minister was wearing the veil was because he knew committed some sort of sin in the time when the young girl was still alive. Rev. Hooper also had a fiancé, Elizabeth, that was also awfully skeptical of the dark veil that her soon to be husband constantly wore. Eventually Elizabeth pleads her fiancé to remove the veil but he objects and tells her that the veil is mortal and that, in Heaven, there shall be no barrier between souls. Elizabeth decides to abscond him, terrified by the very thought her fiancé wearing the black veil. As time passes by Rev. Hooper becomes extremely unwell to the extent of being on his deathbed, during his final hours he asked to remove the veil once again Revered Clark. Revered Hooper refuses to remove the veil and goes to the grave wearing the veil. One of the physical objects that had major symbolic meaning to it wad the veil itself. Revered Hooper’s veil is a clear sign that he is trying to atone for a grave sin. Yet Hooper implies that he intends the veil to be a symbol of mankind’s accustomed sinfulness, not any