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Suffering In The Minister's Black Veil By Nathaniel Hawthorne

665 Words3 Pages

In the story, “The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mr. Hooper faces hardship by wearing a black veil that initially starts his suffering. Mr. Hooper wears the black veil intending to teach a moral lesson to the church congregation. Hawthorne focuses on using Mr. Hooper’s veil to steer the town and Mr. Hooper back to the right path. Mr. Hooper becomes a mysterious character within the town of Milford when he refuses to take off his veil. This inevitably leads to Mr. Hooper’s suffering which causes him to lose the respect from the townspeople, his fiancee, and the joy of life. Mr. Hooper’s fiancee Elizabeth is the last person that stays loyal to him after he starts wearing the veil. She begins to question his reason for wearing …show more content…

Before he wore the veil, everybody in the congregation regarded him as a respectable man and minister. However, all of this changes when he starts wearing the veil. The first day Mr. Hooper walks into the church members of the church become uncomfortable with the veil, which leads some to even end up leaving the gathering. One woman exclaims, “He has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face.” This quote shows the uncomfortability that the people have towards the veil, and how the congregation believe the minister has set a dark tone upon the day. Undoubtedly, the reason that the congregation despises the veil is because the people are left wondering if Mr. Hooper knows their secret sins. So this leads them to not only despise the veil, but also avoid him because of their guilt.
Consequently, Mr. Hooper loses the joy of life because he has no one to live his life with. In, “The Minister’s Black Veil” Nathaniel Hawthorne states, “ In this manner Mr. Hooper spent a long life, irreproachable in outward act, yet shrouded in dismal susp0icions; kind and loving, though unloved, and dimly feared; a man apart from men.” This quote explains how Mr. Hooper lived a quiet and boring life. It also says that even though he was kind and loving he was feared by many. Thus this made him a man apart from men which means he was above many other men because of his

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In my opinion, it seems throughout the story that Hooper is seldom joyous or happy, and he is always miserable and sorrowful. It is first shown when Elizabeth, his soon to be wife, threatens to abandon Hooper and their marriage if he does not remove the dark, black veil. He practically begged her to stay, but she ultimately refused because he did not remove the veil. Also, going back to the children, it is obvious that Hooper is devastated when he cannot even watch the children romp around. Likewise, Hooper can also not have ordinary conservations with people throughout the town.

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“In The Minister's Black Veil” his style was more effective even though he got judged on by his appearance. Because people felt like that if he was preacher then why is he wearing this piece of cloth or sheet he had on. ”Mr Hooper fiance had told Mr.Hooper that she wouldn't want to wear it if she was him”. All together they all thought that Mr.Hooper was an awful men because of what he had on. He wasn't really an aggressive men until when he just got tired of everything and everyone turning against

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In both short stories, “The Devil and Tom Walker”by, Washington Irving and “The Minister’s Black Veil”by, Nathaniel Hawthorne religion is used to expose the hypocrisy of Tom Walker who pretends to be Christian and the Puritan townspeople who judge the minister for exposing his secret sin while sinning themselves. Tom Walker decides to make a deal with the devil for financial gain. Once Tom Walker reaches old age he realizes he is going to hell and tries to figure out a way to cheat the devil. He begins going to church obnoxiously praying and judging the churchgoers for how they choose to practice their The “quiet Christians” would be praying modestly to themselves while Tom would be obnoxiously praying trying to one-up them. Irving compares Tom’s newfound Christianity to his job as a loan shark.

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In “The Minister’s Black Veil”, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the minister, Mr. Hooper wear a black veil which affects his relationship with his community negatively because the people distanced themselves and isolated Mr. Hooper. For example, Elizabeth, Mr. Hooper’s fiancee distances herself from Mr. Hooper. Hawthorne writes, “Then, farewell!” said Elizabeth. She withdrew her arm from his grasp and slowly departed...”. Elizabeth is heading out upset when Mr. Hooper says to her, “Oh!

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Hooper wearing the veil this makes everyone consider him an outcast to society. Before the service and old woman said “I don’t like it” and she hobbled into the meeting-house”(Hawthorne 1). As a result of Hooper wearing the veil he makes this old lady avoid his service because she is scared of him. At the close of the service many people went straight home by themselves and the other huddled in small groups and ignored Mr. Hooper and instead talked about him. Nothing, not the pleas of the elders, nor the nudging of Elizabeth , nor his own loneliness can persuade Hooper to remove the piece of black crape that separates him so dramatically from society (Boone).

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Elizabeth warns Mr. Hooper that she will not marry him if he wears the veil; however, he does not take it off even for love. “It had separated [Mr. Hooper] from cheerful brotherhood and woman’s love, and kept him in the saddest of prisons, his own heart ;…”( 312) is a quote that justifies how the veil caused him great grief. His secret beneath the veil had restricted him from loving again. Elizabeth

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Hooper was wearing the veil to make people that actually did sin feel better about themselves. He was looked at as an idol by everyone so why would he wear a veil for people who did wrong? Mr. Hooper did something someone of his position was sacred to do and he was scared for his fiancée and his church to find out. As a reverend he was not supposed to sin, and that is why everyone looked at him differently and judged him without knowing why he wore the veil. By wearing the veil, he had to commit another sin and lie to his fiancée about why he was wearing it and he broke their vows as a result.

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It is obvious that Mr. Hooper is afraid of people's faithfulness to each one of the villagers, and also to God. It seems as Mr. Hooper is testing to see if the love and companionship of others is unreliable. By seeing the

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In “The Minister’s Black Veil”, the minister also struggles to fit into society’s standards. Because of his black veil, he is aware of the shame placed upon him by society due to his sin and guilt, while he struggles to accommodate the traditional religious expectations with his own beliefs and desires. Likewise, both the woman and Reverend Hooper suffer from an overwhelming feeling of isolation. The woman is struggling with feelings of loneliness as she feels an emotional distance from her partner due to the unexpected pregnancy. The two suffer from a

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The idea of secret sin in a perfectly religious society comes up again and again throughout the story. The black veil was thought to cover the minister's secret sins but, on his deathbed, he revealed that everybody should be wearing a black veil because everyone has a secret sin or sorrow that is hidden from all others. Hence, one of the major themes of the minister's black veil is that of secret sin and how many people neglect to admit that they have secret sins but instead, blame and judge others. Mr. Hooper intently decided to wear a veil daily to represent sin, but he never revealed the reason behind wearing it, this is left for the reader to decipher. Now the Black Veil itself can symbolize many different things according to the opinion of the reader.

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People from other places wanting to see him just to see the “minister with the black veil”. Many other dying sinners were always welcoming him to preach all their sins to him before they left their dying beds. “In this manner, Mr.Hooper spent a long life, irreproachable in outward act, yet shrouded in dismal suspicions; kind and loving, though unloved, and dimly feared; a man apart from men, shunned in their health and joy, but ever summoned to their aid of mortal anguish.” (14, Hawthorne) Eventually, all those stares and reactions towards his black veil made his life miserable and everywhere he sees himself in the glass mirror Mr.Hooper is unable to see himself again like he uses to do before. Among his death bed, his beloved Elizabeth came to take care of him and Reverend Mr.Clark to seek him into conclusion and to help him leave those sins so much he had attached himself to liberate him to the spiritual light.

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In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story, “The Minister’s Black Veil”, Mr. Hooper wears a black veil during his message of secret sin. People understood his message, but then they noticed that he never took off his black veil. Since he never took the veil off, people started judging him, he became secluded from those around him, and his fiancee breaks up with him. This affected Mr. Hooper’s life greatly. No one really liked him.

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Nancy L. Bunge is talking on the topic of how the veil was seen to others, Bunge says, “His veil shuts out happiness, giving a darkened aspect to all living and inanimate things” (Bunge-19). This quote shows that Hooper’s veil brought darkness and unhappiness to many people. In life, we naturally want to be happy, but if something or someone is making us unhappy then we naturally alienate that someone or something from our lives. The veil’s darkness and unhappiness play a big role in the cause of Hooper’s alienation by his surrounding

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