Symbols In The Minister's Black Veil

“Don't sacrifice yourself too much, because if you sacrifice yourself too much there's nothing else you can give and nobody will care for.” This quote said by Karl Lagerfeld does ample justice for Reverend Parson Hooper, the main character in Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story The Minister’s Black Veil. The story began in Milford England which Mr.Hooper called home. One day he appears to his sermon wearing a mysterious black crepe veil revealing only his mouth. The congregation drove to question the veil and made up their own explanations for the veil but no one dares to ask him. In this essay I will be discussing how Hawthorne uses symbols and themes to showers Mr.Hooper’s self sacrifice and how the story is a parable. In this story Nathaniel Hawthorne highlights universal and contextual symbolism. The most obvious and self explanatory symbol is the infamous black veil. Before Mr.Hooper began to wear the veil the congregation became apprehensive, the parishioners avoided him. After he introduced the veil his sermons became more powerful than …show more content…
Reverend Hooper’s says, “Why do you tremble at me alone?... ‘Tremble also at each other!... But the mystery which made this piece of crepe so awful? When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best beloved; When a man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret sin; then deem me a monster for the symbol beneath which which I lived and die! I look around me, and lo! On every visage a black veil.” Hawthorne employed the veil to represent the secret, sinful nature of human, who hid unappealing aspects behind a veneer of respectability. Reverend Hooper adds that he sees a veil on the face of all gathered around him. But those who acknowledge the secrets of their hearts and choose to stand apart from their fellows will often find that that they are ostracized and may lead lives of loneliness, prisoners of their own

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