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Minister's Black Veil Symbolism

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Nathaniel Hawthorne delves deep into the morals of human sin during the short story, “The Minister’s Black Veil”. Hawthorne utilizes symbolism that helps to represent romantic views and ideologies in writing. These symbols such as the veil, the village physician, and the conflict created by Elizabeth convey morals relating to the archetypical theme; where the opinion of the atypical differs between contrasting characters. For the duration of the story the minister has a black veil that is cast over his face. This black veil is arguably the most apparent symbol in the story. This black veil is meant to represent the sin that all humans realize they have committed at some time. The atypical theme that is presented creates irony since everybody …show more content…

She is distracted by the veil because she also feels that it is casting onto his full figure and physique. The main symbolic meaning to Elizabeth is the ignorant people who could not understand nor did they try to find the meaning of the veil. Elizabeth creates the conflict that makes the minister lonely since Elizabeth was one person he thought he could trust. She thinks that her fiancé has gone crazy, “‘What previous affliction hath befallen you’, she earnestly inquired, ‘that you should thus darken your eyes forever?’” (Hawthorne). In this case she has no intentions of trying to figure out any other conclusion other than that he has gone mad. This symbolically represents that she realizes what the veil represents but still doesn’t want to admit to her own sins that she has committed. This is similar to the other members of the congregation except that it is more extreme because the minister thought it was one of the only people who could understand his intentions. This relates to the atypical theme where the protagonist is in alienation and isolation. This understandingly cases the character to go into grief. Overall, Elizabeth created conflicted that escalated the plot and made the minister more lonely. Consequently, the symbols in the Minister’s Black Veil help to convey the archetypical theme that the protagonist is

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488 Words | 2 Pages

The symbolism of the black veil gives a eerie, mysterious tone in the minister’s black veil. As story goes on, the meaning of the black veil becomes clear. Mr. Hooper suggested that every mortal people should cover their faces with the black veil because everyone has a secret or sin behind them. Covering face with the black veil also meant that it is revealing their short come to the others that will make them lonely or fall in sorrow. It also represents scary feeling to the others.

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754 Words | 4 Pages

It is a close knit town where everybody knows each other. As the story progresses, it is seen how people will avoid even the most loved friends and family once there is a mysterious barrier in between them. So, throughout the story, the minister’s black veil symbolizes a variety of things such as: secret sins, a barrier, and even sorrow. First off, I think that Father Hooper’s black veil symbolizes everyone’s secret sins. In the beginning of the story, church begins and Hooper appears concealed by a black veil, and everybody is mystified.

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1606 Words | 7 Pages

Which allows me to signify that another theme that this story hides is sorrow, there’s a lot of sadness and grief throughout the story. “Have patience with me, Elizabeth!” “ Do not desert me, though this veil must be between us here on earth” (242). “The black veil separated him from cheerful brotherhood and woman’s love.” Hence, one of the major themes of “The Minister’s Black Veil” is that those who acknowledge the secrets of their hearts and those who choose to stand apart from their fellows will often find that they are ostracized and may well lead lives of loneliness, prisoners in their own hearts”( Reed 3 ).

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692 Words | 3 Pages

In The Minister's Black Veil the Minister wore a black veil throughout the entire story. This causes the town mad. Everyone is trying to reflect and understand what the black veil means. The black veil takes a toll throughout the entire town without the town realizing this. This Black Veil is the man piece of the entire story.

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462 Words | 2 Pages

Also, the Minister moved around cautiously because he thought people would find out what sin he had. Whenever he moved around people, they would act all sad and terrible all because of the black veil. From people’s point of view, the characters change their mood for the day, just by their presence and

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641 Words | 3 Pages

Poems like "The Raven" serve as great references to find emotions that the author may have not been able to express as intensely if it was not for symbolism. Symbolism is more popularly used to portray more harsh, or intense feelings. In "The Minister's Black Veil" the minister's feelings of guilt and sinfulness are expressed through the dark and mysterious veil ("SchoolWorkHelper"). Nathaniel Hawthorne put the wedding and funeral in the story to symbolize the circle of life and death (Lorcher). Continuing with the idea of symbolism in the wedding and funeral, the minister and his black veil creates a sense of evil at both events and reminds the reader that evil presences can be anywhere (Lorcher).

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747 Words | 3 Pages

Sacrifice-an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy. Everyone will eventually sacrifice something, some more than others, yet those sacrifices will often lead to achievement. In the short story, “The Minister’s Black Veil,” Nathaniel Hawthorne illustrates how heartbreaking details, emotional imagery, and sorrowful symbolism demonstrate sacrifice and gain. Hawthorne’s use of heartbreaking details shows how love is sometimes sacrificed for the teaching of a lesson, only to be regretted in the end. Hooper’s love, Elizabeth, “ loses a certain relationship with the person she loves, only to gain a different relationship with him later.”

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384 Words | 2 Pages

The idea is that with the many examples of word play, and repetition, ranging from variations of the word veil, tremble, and hidden, this shows the message of hiding your face in a terrifying way. German also points out the reoccurrence of the Latin root word “vis” This comes from the word “videre,” which means “face,” or “visage.” This root word appears multiple times, “a stranger’s visage would be discovered,” (Hawthorne, 682.) This is a play on the archaic meaning of “discovered,” meaning “uncovered,” or “found.” It is mentioned that none of the townspeople care about the Minister, but only about his veil.

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510 Words | 3 Pages

The author uses a lot of symbolism to represent things as in contrast to the Edwards’ text. As an illustration, one thing that the author uses in the Minister’s Black Veil , was the black veil, the black veil represented a lot of things like darkness, evil, and wickedness. In the text the church’s pastor came out like a normal sunday but on this Sunday he had on a black

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1158 Words | 5 Pages

The veil that the minister wears in "The Ministers Black Veil", by Nathanial Hawthorne represents both the minister’s isolation from society and also his connection to society through sin. This symbolism of the veil is no immediately obvious, but later on throughout the story becomes noticeable. In the story when the minister, Mr. Hooper first walks out of his house wearing the black veil, everyone was startled. No one quite understood why the minister would be wearing this veil for no specific reason.

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668 Words | 3 Pages

What can you expect from a minister from changing persona where people use to see him as a “gentlemanly men, of about thirty, though still a bachelor, was dressed with due clerical neatness.” Then have a change in his appearance where it drastically changes his life. By a piece of cloth over his head accounts reactions of the congregation to it, the veil, a black veil that changed the image and the reactions of the people from Westbury. It is just a man, Mr.Hooper, who Hawthorne is modulating between dramatic incidents involving the black veil and Mr.Hooper approaches dramatic reactions towards it, in the short story the “Minister’s Black Veil”. The key symbol of the short story is the black veil it represented the spiritual isolation between

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1277 Words | 6 Pages

In the Minister’s Black Veil, the black veil has a great significance to the story. The black veil symbolizes the secret sin in society. The sins of humanity are the greatest sin which society hides and ignores. People do not take account of the bad deeds that are going on every single day. This Parable does an outstanding job of doing that because Mr. Hooper goes on with his day normally, but by having that veil on his face it exemplifies that sin is occurring.

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1394 Words | 6 Pages

He refuses to remove it and people speculate that he is hiding something. Both works have many Gothic elements, such as sin and death, in them. However, “The Minister’s Black Veil” also has some Romantic elements such as individualism and focus on solitary life. Both works were from different writers, and written in different styles, but used imagery, figurative language, and symbolism to enhance their themes. To begin with, Romantic and Gothic writers used imagery to appeal to the senses of the audience and put them in the story with the characters.

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993 Words | 4 Pages

In the “Minister’s Black Veil”, Hawthorne displays Hooper and the symbol of the veil as a representation of how judgmental society can become when faced with situations they don’t understand even though they have no right to judge. The “Minister’s Black Veil” was written as a parable in order to teach us a moral lesson stating that you should never judge someone. In Paul J. Emmett’s literary criticism he tells of a point in the story when Hooper explains his reasoning for wearing the veil, Emmett says, “After exhausting life in his efforts for mankind’s spiritual good, he had made the manner of his death a parable, in order to impress on his admirers the mighty and mournful lesson, that, in the view of infinite purity, we

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1499 Words | 6 Pages

In his short story, “The Minister’s Black Veil,” Nathaniel Hawthorne uses irony, symbolism, and stereotypical Puritan beliefs and behavior to expose humanity’s hypocrisy in an effort to create change. Irony is an extremely important literary element that Hawthorne uses in “The Minister’s Black Veil.” Throughout the story, many different examples of irony are evident. First off, the

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