The Minister's Black Veil Reflection

"The Minister's Black Veil" by Nathaniel Hawthorne is another piece of Dark Romanticism that reflects the psychological aspect and the mystery because no one knows why Mr. Hooper has started wearing a veil across his face and there is the mystery and like in many other towns rumors start to spread. "The veil isolates him from humanity and is an emblem of his martyrdom to spiritual truth. His emotional life has been curtailed and he has cut himself off from others on the basis of an abstract religious conviction" (Wright). This is Mr. Wright's thoughts of the mystery veil that Mr. Hooper wears and in many opinions the veil symbolizes his sin. Even the great Edgar Allan Poe a famous Dark Romanticist writer is even unsure of the true symbolism for this veil but he believes it to be a symbolism of Hooper's specific sin, which could be connected with the funeral of the young woman he conducts (Wright). Hawthorne character of Mr. Hooper describes a man growing detached from the world and the communication with others and he is isolating himself by acting different which makes people start to avoid him making him closer to isolation and this does things to the mind.by isolating yourself you become out of touch with the reactions among people that are so important to mental health and when someone cuts themselves off these connections are lost and lonely and become sad.

" She withdrew her arms his grasp, and slowly departed, pausing at the door, to give one long shuddering gaze, that seemed almost to penetrate the mystery of the black veil. But, even amid his grief Mr. Hooper smiled to think that only a material emblem had separated him from happiness, though the horrors, which it shadowed forth,must be drawn darkly between the fondest of lovers" (Hawthorne).

This is another example of how the veil is separating Mr. Hooper from society and the relationships of the world he told the woman that he cold not be with her in the world now but that they could be together in the afterlife in Heaven. This thought about his relationships in the afterlife is disturbing because most people tend to avoid the whole subject of death and focus on the relationships they have now instead of the ones they want to have when they die. "In this manner Mr. 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" (Hawthorne). The people area afraid of him and they do not know what to think about him and this causes him to loose touch with society. He lived a very long time and watched most of his parish die and he performed most of their funerals as he continued to live. This could have also played a factor in how he isolated himself he watched all the other people die and did not want to feel the pain that came with death so he parted himself from the people and became detached from the people around him so that he did not have to feel the pain of lost.

Wright, Sarah Bird. "'The Minister's Black Veil'." Critical Companion to Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Hawthorne,, Nathaniel. "The Minister's Black Veil, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1836." Eldritch Press. Web. 23 Jan. 2012.