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The Minister's Black Veil Summary

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In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story, The Minister’s Black Veil, reveals a minister, name Mr. Hooper, wearing a black veil during a sermon. Normally, black veils are worn by women either for religious reasons or for other reasons. Because of this case, the people who are listening to the Hooper’s sermon are quite confused and have no idea how to react to this situation. By being an important person in the town and church, the veil covers his vanity and the veil covers his view of the world. It covers his views of evil. In small towns, the person who performs sermons and masses, people like ministers and priests, are considered the most important person of the town. That person helps the people with any problem they need by providing sayings that are part of the Bible or some other religious entity. The wearing of the black veil causes the people to be in a state of confusion because the people know Hooper very well because to them, understanding the word of God is very important and it strengthens their faith. With this situation, the people are not comfortable because Hooper is acting weirdly and he is not the person the people know and listen to. The veil shows that Hooper looks differently towards the people, making him think differently about the world. The veil has Hooper thinking …show more content…

The black veil made the people think the Mr. Hooper was changing and wasn’t being a normal minister. The black veil is simply there for Hooper so he can see a different view on the world. He sees black faces showing that people sin, his sees that everyone there is equal, and he sees the behaviors of the people revealing their personalities that he can learn from. Hawthorne is showing the reader Hooper wants to make a town that is free from sin and make things simple for them. He wants their faith to be stronger and become better

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'Symbolism In Minister's Black Veil'

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In Hawthorne’s short story, the minister walks out of the rectory one morning with a black veil covering his face. In this story, it is heavily debated what that black veil actually symbolizes. Could it be a symbol of sin and guilt, or is it rather a barrier between the minister and the rest of society? The story takes place in winter at Milford, Connecticut, where it focuses on Parson Hooper, the town’s minister.

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The Minister's Black Veil Rhetorical Analysis

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He sets a somber and self-pitying tone towards the audience. Hooper believes,like most other human beings, that he has sorrow strong enough to be epitomized by a black veil. Hooper states that he is not at ease with seeing a reflection of himself in a mirror, which apprises that he is not happy with himself substituting for others sins. Hooper is an ironic character because as well as he affecting the community’s outlook of him, he is also immensely affecting himself. Hawthorne uses imagery to depict how Rev. Hooper sacrificed the representation of the veil.

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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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Symbols In The Minister's Black Veil

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“The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is full of many different symbols, but the most notable one is the veil itself. Throughout the story, Hawthorne presents many instances where the veil could mean several things. Some may see only one meaning, however, others may see a number of them. Hawthorne may have been the only one who truly knew what the veil symbolized, but at the same time the fact that the story makes the reader think even after reading it is what makes it all the more interesting to analyze. The veil itself could symbolize things such as rebirth, secrecy, ambiguity.

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The Minister's Black Veil Analysis

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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.

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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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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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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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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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Just because he didn’t show his bare face to Elizabeth, she ended their relationship. “...material emblem had separated him from happiness, though the horrors, which it shadowed forth, must be drawn darkly between the fondest of lovers.” (Hawthorne 12) Hooper is thinking about what he has done but still doesn’t do anything about it because the black veil signified something more important to him. “Each character, then, is faced with the prospect of assuming mature responsibilities, and each story is an account of how he responds to this crucial psychological situation.” (Askew 2)

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Throughout the story, Mr. Hooper is covered by a black veil which masks his face. He continuously prevents anyone from seeing his face or persuading him to take it off. Through the use of the veil, Hawthorne paints a picture which shows how sin ruled over the Puritan communities and controlled each person among them. The veil itself becomes the center of attention for all members of Hooper’s Puritan congregation. The entire population of the town become scared of Hooper and believe that this man who was so high among their values, now has a horrid sinful past that he is trying to hide.

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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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