By wearing the veil Reverend Hooper lost all of his self-respect and dignity. Instead of questioning the reverend and the townspeople strayed from him assuming the veil was a symbol of sin and evil. The community could not get passed the veil they indeed thought about it throughout the whole service.
Hooper was before thought of as the most Holy but now was shown as a representation of evil because of the veil. The people lost all given respect for their priest. The community judges Hooper based off of their own assumptions, rather than the true evidence of Hooper being committed to anything sinful.
Hooper knowing that the community would focus more on the veil takes into consideration his dignity but makes a choice to worry about the most important things in life. Saunders explains the true meaning of the veil. He states that the veil was variously interpreted. The thought of the veil brought into play mixed emotions from the people whether they approved of the veil or disapproved was their choice.
Many disapproved of the veil leaving Hooper to be set as an outcast. Hooper allows himself to lose his own dignity for the good of his people. A subtle power was breathed into his words.
Hooper, wherefore he did this thing. Were the veil but cast aside, they might speak freely of it, but not till then. In response to Elizabeth's direct question why he put it on: "'There is an hour to come,' said he, 'when all of us shall cast aside our veils. Take it not amiss, beloved friend, if I wear this piece of crepe till then. Be mine, and hereafter there shall be no veil over my face, no darkness between our souls!
It is but a mortal veil--it is not for eternity! Do not leave me in this miserable obscurity forever! 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 in mortal anguish.
I look around me, and, lo! What does Hooper mean when he says "the veil is mortal" and " There is an hour to come when all of us shall cast aside our veils "? A parable is a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson. What's the lesson of this story? Discuss the situational irony of the reverend being the one wearing a veil, when it's his parishioners who are the one's doing the hiding of their own "secret sins.
Elizabeth is the one character with a higher level of consciousness who communicates frankly with the Reverend, and to whom he reveals his true feelings of love for her.
But the physical symbol of the veil keeps them separate. When she pleads with him to remove the veil just once, why does he refuse? Why does she then reject him, yet never marry another? How is this story representative of Dark Romanticism? Compare Hawthorne's parable in this story with one of these 12 Parables from the Bible. Look up the Book and verse citation here: The Holy Bible. Compare the themes of sin, failings of human nature, and societal judgement in The Minister's Black Veil with one of the following works by Hawthorne:.
Some readers and members of his congregation assume Reverend Hooper committed adultery or some form of secret sin, which is why he is wearing the veil. Discuss your own view of whose sin caused him to wear the veil. Browse Essays. Sign in. Essay Sample Check Writing Quality. Show More. Read More. Words: - Pages: 5.
Words: - Pages: 4. The Secret Closet Analysis Of course, no one except his God sees his penance, yet Dimmesdale hopes his suffering will count toward something. Words: - Pages: 8. Words: - Pages: 6. Arthur Dimmesdale In The Scarlet Letter he believes he can not confess his sin in fear of losing the support from his congregation even though he knows that it is not right to go unpunished, and admitting to his crime will be his only form of redemption.
Words: - Pages: 9. The behavior of the people of Rev. Hooper's community suggests that they have taken from society -- i. And since, for them, the condition of remaining a member of the community with which their conception of personal identity is inextricably tied is that one be redeemed, the price of admitting to oneself that one is sinful means that one is not fit to remain in the community.
And since giving up one's status as a respected member of the community is, for them, more painful than giving up one's prospect of eternal life and immunity to eternal damnation, it is necessary to deny that one any longer harbors sin. But since acknowledging that one is doing this is inconsistent with one's enjoyment of one's identity as member of the community of the decent, it is necessary to deny one's consciousness of sin even to oneself.
In contrast, the fact that Rev. Hooper preaches the sermon he does -- on the first day he adopts the veil, and subsequently by his persistence in his decision to keep wearing it -- suggests that he either rejects the view that redemption and persistence in sin are consistence or is able to bear the consciousness that he may not, at least yet, be redeemed. Presumably, for both Rev. Hooper and his parishioners, Puritan theology is insistent that, without conviction of sin, there can be no salvation.
Conviction of sin is necessary, though not sufficient for salvation. If this tenet of their ancestors is true, though, the members of this community are in dire spiritual peril. But even if it is not, their commitment to social respectability is revealed as more important to them than their appreciation of their eternal welfare.
The historical irony that Hawthorne suggests is that the original Puritan communal plan contained within it the potential to produce a society constructed on a thoroughgoing hypocrisy. His story asks his readers to ask themselves whether this potential has in fact become a reality. Of course, his readers are at liberty to answer "No.
By now we are in a position to note that the story does not restrict itself to parallels, either. For it is a fundamental fact of the narrative that Rev.
0コメント