Reflection Blog- The Minister's Black Veil

Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Minister's Black Veil, which is a short story that tells us about a sexton who wears this black veil over his face and about all of the drama and mystery this black veil brings. I thought that this story was kind of weird at first, but once I finished it and looked back at what everything actually meant it was a pretty cool story. This story starts out with people's first reacitons to seeing Mr. Hooper with a mysterious black veil covering most of his face. From what I understood from this story, it seemed that people thought that he was crazy or that something. For example, on page 283 there is a quote from a man discussing the matter with his wife:

But the strangest part of the affair is the effect of this vagary, even on a sober-minded man like myself. The black veil, though it covers only our pastor's face, throws its influence over his whole person, and makes him ghostlike from head to foot (Hawthorne 283).

This passage shows a glimpse of how some of the people in the town felt about the mysterious black veil that covered the face of their pastor. I think that because Mr. Hooper wore this black veil, he troubled many of the members of his church because no one knew why he was wearing it. Finally when Mr. Hooper is on his death bed, he tells everyone that he had been wearing the black veil because of his own personal belief that his black veil was similar to a persons face because both hide a persons evil thoughts and sins (Hawthorne 280). That right there is a quality of Dark Romanticism writing because they expressed the belief in sin and evil throughout this story. The Minister's Black Veil included many characterisitcs from the Romanticism and Dark Romanticisim time period. A few characterisitcs of the Dark Romanticism time period are that it is said to pay attention to the mysteries of life, and to have a belief in sin and evil (Dark). In addition to those characteristics, people during these times valued feelings and emotion over reason and also emphasized looking inward for the truth (Dark). I think that it is pretty cool to see how much people freaked out about Mr. Hooper wearing a veil over his face because if you really think about it, it is not a big deal. I think what scared people most about the black veil that covered their minister's face was the fact that to them the meaning behind it was a mystery. People thought Mr. Hooper had gone crazy, or that he was a monster, but really he was just proving a point. He believed that a veil is the same as a person's face because they both hide the truth and sin. I think that the way the people react to Mr. Hooper's black veil is very realistic though because I know that if something similar to that happened to me I would think they were crazy as well. I think that people fear what they do not have an answer to, and because they did not know why Mr. Hooper was wearing this black veil they feared it.

"Dark Romanticism - ArticleWorld." Main Page - ArticleWorld. Web. 23 Jan. 2012.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Minister’s Black Veil.” Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm,
Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed.
Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 280-289. Print.