What Is The Connection Between The Scarlet Letter And The Minister's Black Veil

Nathanial Hawthorne wrote many novels and short stories that focused on themes of sin. Two of these works, “The Minister’s Black Veil” and The Scarlet Letter, both discuss this theme which is one of the many connections that the two works share. Through multiple pieces of evidence, these works demonstrate a focus on the fight beginning in “The Minister’s Black Veil” between servants of the Lord and the devil. In his story “The Minister’s Black Veil,” Nathanial Hawthorne uses knowing diction to depict strong religious tones that represent the way he uses his sin and the sins of others to leave a positive impact on his parishioners in a direct comparison with how Chillingsworth’s sins become a negative representation of sin in The Scarlet Letter.

This shows that physically he sees everything with a darker tint, but when one considers the minister shuddering after viewing his reflection wearing the veil (“The Minister’s” 277) or a corpse shuddering upon seeing the inside of the veil (“The Minister’s 276-277), it becomes clear that the veil has more than mere physical properties. The minister is buried with the veil on (“The Minister’s 284) and it retains its properties while buried as seen in Nathanial Hawthorne’s book, The Scarlet Letter. In the Scarlet Letter, another servant of the Lord, Reverend Dimmesdale, is struck ill around the same time

The minister wore the veil to benefit the town. Upon Mr. Hooper putting on the veil, Hawthorn states “but there was something, either in the sentiment in the discourse itself, or in the imagination of the auditors, which made it greatly the most powerful effort that they had ever heard from their pastor’s lips” (“The Minister’s” 275). The minister was also able to better sympathies with his parishioners upon seeing their sins. Furthermore, the minister asked to be buried in the veil fearing that it would fall into the wrong hands. The minister also purposefully or otherwise prevented a presumable effect of the veil as seen by the brutality of the town and by the extreme hatred inspired in Chillingsworth upon moving to the town. The townspeople noticed this in Chillingsworth stating “to sum up the matter, it grew to be a widely diffused opinion, that the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, like many other parsonages of especial sanctity, in all ages of the Christian world was haunted wither by Satan himself, or Satan’s emissary, in the guise of old Roger Chillingsworth” (The Scarlet Letter 118). This shows that the corruption had spread through Chillingsworth had become noticeable to the town. While controlled by someone like the Minister, the veil’s effects are positive; however, when uncontrolled, that sin can be