The Ministers Black Veil Essays -- Literature, Hawthorne

In Nathaniel Hawthornes The Ministers Black Veil, Mr. Hooper, a Reverend in the town of Milford, surprises his parishioners by donning a conspicuous drear veil one Sunday. The town is visibly spooked, yet still curious, about his eerie appearance and profoundly affected by his sermon on cabalistic sin. A subtle power was breathed into his words. Each member of the congregation, the most innocent girl, and the man of hardened breast, felt as if the preacher had crept upon them, behind his stately veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought (2432). The parishioners expect that Hooper will only don the veil for one day and then remove it, having utilise the visage to make his point on secret sin, but they are taken aback to find that he does not remove the veil later on that sunday, but in fact, ultimately wears it until his death. The town begins to gossip about why the minister of religion wears the crepe, questioning his purity and straying away from his per son. When the Parsons intended, Elizabeth, asks him to do away with his lyssa and remove the veil, he sadly refuses, and Elizabeth reluctantly leaves him. The story concludes as the Parson dies, isolated by his choice to wear the veil with only the dying and the exsanguine taking comfort in his presence, proclaiming that on each face he sees a black veil. In The Ministers Black Veil, Nathaniel Hawthorne seeks to showcase the flaws of a society in which its members wear and create false facades by illustrating how it separates and alienates the idiosyncratic from society, peers, reality, and spirituality. In The Ministers Black Veil, Parson Hooper uses his black veil as a way to represent an individual verses their hidden sin. He sees each member of his community as havi... ...o despise the veil are warranted in their dislike, because it is unnatural, shocking, and sudden. For them to react any other way would be odd. All but Elizabeth fail to ask him to remove the veil as well a s the deeper meaning behind it. Sow could they expect him to yield to demands they themselves never voiced? Perhaps if the veil bothered his parishioners so greatly, they would have become more proactive in revealing their secret sins and thus relieved the Parson of his burden. Neither side is per say right, but it is important to note that the Parson acted out of desire to help the parishioners while the parishioners didnt truly act at all. whole caboodle CitedLauter, Paul, Richard Yarborough, and John Alberti. The Ministers Black Veil. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Vol. B. Boston, MA Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Pub., 2009. 2431-439. Print.