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The Minister's Black Veil Analysis

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The Minister Black Veil Mr. Hooper put on the black veil, which changed his life until death. Although, the town knew him before the veil, their feeling changed drastically after the veil. It is human nature to judge one’s feelings by someone’s facial expressions and body language. Mr. Hooper was trying thorough symbolism to show that everyone has something to cover up. In the end, Mr. Hooper life was lonely and sacrificed, by choosing to wear the veil. By the end of the paper, the reader will understand how the black veil changed his life forever. Mr. Hooper starts wearing the veil at a funeral. The rumors started all around town as to why he is wearing the veil. He puts the veil on for the statement that no one is perfect, and everyone …show more content…

Hooper understands that in life people sin. Everyone has something in their past, they are not proud of. He placed the veil as a symbol of this. He tried to explain his reasoning behind wearing it to the people, and his Fiancée. They could not see his face any longer and felt there was something wrong with him. Trust became an issue. He had not done anything any differently His face being covered to the people was a symbol of evil and wrong doing. His Fiancée still took care of him but would not marry him. She wanted him to take off the veil. She did not understand when he tried to explain that he saw a veil on everyone. Everyday everyone has a veil because of the sin in life. She could not marry what she could not see. She felt a lack of trust even though she loved him. In life, it is hard to trust or understand when people have different feeling or belief. In the end, the preacher tried to unmask Mr. Hooper. At first, he thought that he agreed. He then reached up with both hands and held the veil. He told the people present that he would die with the mask on; just as they would. He told them don’t look at me by myself but look at each other. Everyone is the same. Everyone ran, hide, and denied him because of the veil, when they should have been looking at themselves. The veil is a symbol of life

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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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When she finds out that he is deathly ill she comes to his death bed to be by his side. Elizabeth and the Reverend ask him once again to remove the veil, but he refuses. As he dies, those around him tremble. He tells them in anger not to tremble, not merely for him but for themselves, for they all wear black veils. Father Hooper is buried with the black veil on his face.

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In a literary critique written by N.S. Boone, he discusses Hooper’s reaction to the people’s asking to remove the veil. He wrote, “Nothing, not he pleas of the elders, nor the nudging of Elizabeth, nor his own loneliness can persuade Hooper to remove that piece of black crape that separates him so dramatically from society,” (Boone 6). His refusal to remove the veil angers several people in the short story. They care nothing about the dying man, but about the secret behind the black

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He no longer fit in with the people in the village and he didn’t meet their expectations of what a minister should be like so they started saying things about Mr.Hooper. At the beginning of the story when they were in the church and Mr.Hooper began wearing the veil a person

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you know not how lonely I am, and how frightened to be alone behind my black veil. Do not leave me in this miserable obscurity forever!” The black veil caused for Mr. Hooper to lose his love. Both were really close but the black veil inferred in their relationship. However,

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On his deathbed, Hooper refuses to remove the black viel until “‘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). Hooper admits that he wore the black veil physically to reflect individuals’ sins and their unwillingness to accept them. Instead of society accepting the meaning of the black veil, they only express judgment for Hooper’s ability to express his sins in his physical appearance.

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Mr. Hooper frightens this woman so much that she would stay alone with him for the world. At the end of his services all the kids wouldn’t enjoy him anymore and the adults would try and avoid him and go home. “Even on his deathbed, Hooper adamantly refuses to remove the veil so that as ‘a veiled corpse they brought him to the grave’

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To begin with, in order to understand that Mr. Hooper knew he was dying, we must first understand that he was using the veil to hide something. The veil was used to represent that Mr. Hooper was hiding something with the veil is because, as stated in articles 1 and 3 “…to hide…”” …to hide…” it shows that he is hiding something. Others may argue that he was wearing the veil in order to hide his face, not a secret, for example, “He wore the veil to hide his face from the world ...” This quote was found in article three written by Searis West. It is important, however, that we understand he was hiding a secret, not his face, from the world.

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Hooper’s sacrifice acknowledges that sin comes at a high price, as he wore the veil, he isolated himself from the Puritan society and no longer accepted him as that was advent. The theme of the Minister’s Black Veil is that everyone has a secret sin, dying from others and that no one person can escape sin. “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). Reverend Hooper wears the black veil to communicate to his congregation and acknowledge that he has sinned. He sacrifices himself by wearing the black veil to recognize the sins committed by himself and the others townspeople; coming to terms with bad sins and remaining as part of humanity.

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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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Many people of the community were afraid of Reverend Hooper and his black veil. “But from the...over his face” (Hawthorne 2-4). Although Hooper’s empirically observable behavior is uniformly kind and gentle, he remains unloved and dimly feared. Later on, the community realized that the veil was not a symbol of evil and decided the effects were not all that bad.

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Mr. Hooper was forcing all of the people to look deeper within themselves and try to understand the veils true meaning “Such was the effect of this simple piece of crape, that more than one woman of delicate nerves was forced to leave the meeting-house. Yet perhaps the pale-faced congregation was almost as fearful a sight to the minister, as his black veil to them.” (Hawthorne 707) In reality, the veil represents the secrets everyone is hiding within himself or herself. The theme of the veil is the conflict between the dark, hidden side of man.

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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 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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Paranoia started to affect the town as people tried to figure out why their minister was covering his face. Hooper refused to ever remove the veil, even to his fiancee, who, as a result of this, left him. Hooper left the veil on his head until he was dying, and even then, still refused to remove the veil. Hooper died and was buried with the black veil still on his head.

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