The Ministers Black Veil Essays -- Literature, Hawthorne

In Nathaniel Hawthornes The Ministers caustic Veil, Mr. Hooper, a Reverend in the town of Milford, surprises his parishioners by donning a conspicuous inglorious veil one Sun daylight. The town is visibly spooked, yet still curious, or so his eerie appearance and profoundly affected by his sermon on secret sin. A subtle power was breathed into his words. Each penis of the congregation, the most innocent girl, and the man of hardened breast, felt as if the preacher had crept upon them, behind his awful veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or opinion (2432). The parishioners expect that Hooper will only don the veil for one day and then extinguish it, having used the visage to make his point on secret sin, but they are taken aback to find that he does not remove the veil after that sunday, but in fact, in the long run wears it until his death. The town begins to gossip about why the Parson wears the crepe, questioning his faithfulness and straying away from his person. When the Parsons intended, Elizabeth, asks him to do away with his foolishness 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 dead victorious comfort in his presence, proclaiming that on each face he sees a black veil. In The Ministers melanise 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 individual from society, peers, reality, and spirituality. In The Ministers Black Veil, Parson Hooper uses his black veil as a way to set up 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 early(a) way would be odd. All but Elizabeth fail to ask him to remove the veil as well as the deeper meaning behind it. sow in could they expect him to yield to demands they themselves never voiced? Perhaps if the veil fazed his parishioners so greatly, they would have become more proactive in bring out their secret sins and thus relieved the Parson of his burden. Neither side is per theorize 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.Works 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.