What Does The Minister's Black Veil Symbolize

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The parable,"The Minister's black veil", discusses characteristics that show feelings towards other people, civilization, religious reasons, and individual freedom. These characteristics are seen in the short story "The Minister's black veil." The first characteristic is “Civilization”. An example from the story would be “on a nearer view it seemed to consist of two folds of crape, which entirely concealed his features, except the mouth and chin, but probably did not insert his sights, further than to give a darkened aspect to all living and inanimate things."(Hawthorne, 2) Sometimes you might do something or even wear something to how you feeling about the things going on around you, for example, Mr. Hooper, he felt that he did something wrong (sin) and now he wears a veil to try to resemble the bad things he has done. On the other hand, this was also a way …show more content…
One thing that it can symbolize is freedom. It symbolizes freedom because people should wear anything they feel like depending on how they feel towards the world or what is going on around them. Another thing the Veil can symbolize would be darkness. The veil was black meaning it was worn because of something bad that happened either in the world or in someone's life. For example, Mr. Hooper wore the veil because he was repenting for his sins. He felt that others should do the same and not judge him for wearing something he felt was right, but then again not everyone focuses on their things. The three levels of understanding the symbolism of the black veil would be a Specific sin, darkness of humanity, and secret sin everyone has in their heart. Specific sin would be that everyone sins and that’s why he’s wearing the black veil. The darkness of humanity would be that Mr. Hooper sees all the bad things going on in his world. Secret sin would be that he might have done something not so bad, but by wearing that it will show that he is sorry for what he
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