"The Minister's Black Veil"
Stylistic Analysis
The story under analysis "The Minister's Black Veil" was written by a famous American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. He is a representative of the 19th century. The work of Nathaniel Hawthorne was based on the history of his Puritan ancestors and the New England of his own day. Hawthorne was predominantly a short story writer in his early career. His "The Scarlet Letter" and "The House of the Seven Gables" are classics of American literature. Hawthorne also wrote nonfiction.
"The Minister's Black Veil" was written in 1836. The author tried to underline eternal problems of society in his story.
The events took place in a small town, where everyone knew everything about each other even to the smallest details. That's why it is not strange that when Mr. Hooper started to wear the black veil, it caught attention of everybody.
The story began with Parson Hooper's (the reverend of Milford) arrival to the mass on the Sabbath with a black veil covereing his eyes. We got acquinted with the main character and the citizens. I should point out that many people gathered at the mass, so it showed that they were religious ones or at least tried to be.
The main idea of the story is to show that everyone wears a veil which hides our real face and everyone has its own sins.
The story is the third person narrative.
The events are presented consequentially, one by one. So it's easier to understand the plot of the story.
The story begins with exposition, which supplies us with explanatory information to help us to comprehend the given situation.
"THE SEXTON stood in the porch of Milford meetinghouse, pulling busily at the bell rope. The old people of the village came stooping along the street. Children, with bright faces, tripped merrily beside their parents, or mimicked a graver gait, in the conscious dignity of their Sunday clothes. Spruce bachelors looked sidelong at the pretty maidens, and fancied that the Sabbath sunshine made them prettier than on weekdays. When the throng had mostly streamed into the porch, the sexton began to toll the bell, keeping his eye on the Reverend Mr. Hooper's door."
Getting acquinted with minister's appearance, we face with climax. The narrator describes the man, Mr. Hooper, as a clerically-dressed man around the age of thirty. There is, in fact, nothing different about this man except for the object which prompts a number of uncomfortable responses from his parishioners, which is the black veil that obscures most of his face.
" Mr. Hooper gentlemanly person, of about thirty, though still a bachelor, was dressed with due clerical neatness, as if a careful wife had starched his band, and brushed the weekly dust from his Sunday's garb. There was but one thing remarkable in his appearance. Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his face, so low as to be shaken by his breath Mr. Hooper had on a black veil."
Then the anticlimax goes, it is expressed throuth the attitude of citizens to the minister, they gossip about the mystery of the veil, try to avoid him. It makes me think that while they are so concentrated on the minister's veil and seeing his outward expression of sin, they could overlook their internal crimes.
"The next day, the whole village of Milford talked of little else than Parson Hooper's black veil. That, and the mystery concealed behind it, supplied a topic for discussion between acquaintances meeting in the street, and good women gossiping at their open windows. It was the first item of news that the tavernkeeper told to his guests. The children babbled of it on their way to school. One imitative little imp covered his face with an old black handkerchief, thereby so affrighting his playmates that the panic seized himself, and he well-nigh lost his wits by his own waggery."
The story ends with the minister's death. Bearing his sad smile he claimed that people around are hypocrites, as they all wear “black veils” and shield their eyes from God when they confide in others. So that's conclusion of the story.
"While his auditors shrank from one another, in mutual affright, Father Hooper fell back upon his pillow, a veiled corpse, with a faint smile lingering on the lips. Still veiled, they laid him in his coffin, and a veiled corpse they bore. him to the grave"
The given passage is a narration with elements of dialogue.
directly - through his actions and speech
"With this gloomy shade before him, goad Mr. Hooper walked onward, at a slow and quiet pace, stooping somewhat, and looking on the ground, as is customary with abstracted men, yet nodding kindly to those of his parishioners who still waited on the meetinghouse steps."
"...then, this veil is a type and a symbol, and I am bound to wear it ever, both in light and darkness, in solitude and before the gaze of multitudes, and as with strangers, so with my familiar friends. No mortal eye will see it withdrawn. This dismal shade must separate me from the world; even you, Elizabeth, can never come behind it!"
"Hitherto, whenever there appeared the slightest call for such interference, he had never lacked advisers, nor shown himself averse to be guided by their judgment. If he erred at all, it was by so painful a degree of self-distrust, that even the mildest censure would lead him to consider an indifferent action as a crime"
indirectly - through the attitude of the people around
""I don't like it," muttered an old woman, as she hobbled into the meetinghouse. "He has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face."
"Our parson has gone mad!" cried Goodman Gray, following him across the threshold."
"No," said she aloud, and smiling, "there is nothing terrible in this piece of crepe, except that it hides a face which I am always glad to look upon. Come, good sir, let the sun shine from behind the cloud. First lay aside your black veil; then tell me why you put it on."
It is better to characterize all other characters together, they are citizens. They are described mainly directly.
directly - through their behaviour and speech
"At the close of the services, the people hurried out with indecorous confusion, eager to communicate their pent-up amazement, and conscious of lighter spirits the moment they lost sight of the black veil. Some gathered in little circles, huddled closely together, with their mouths all whispering in the center; some went homeward alone, wrapt in silent meditation; some talked loudly, and profaned the Sabbath day with ostentatious laughter."
"It was remarkable that of all the busybodies and impertinent people in the parish, not one ventured to put the plain question to Mr. Hooper, wherefore he did this thing."
"Truly do I," replied the lady; "and I would not be alone with him for the world. I wonder he is not afraid to be alone with himself!"
In order to portray the characters and describe the setting and events the author of the analysed passage resorts to the following devices:
Lexical
methaphor:
"That mysterious emblem was never once withdrawn. It shook with his measured breath, as he gave out the psalm; it threw its obscurity between him and the holy page, as he read the Scriptures; and while he prayed, the veil lay heavily on his uplifted countenance."
(to pay the reader's attention and help to imagine the details)
"Elizabeth, I will," said he, "so far as my vow may suffer me"
(to underline that he won't change his decision)
simily:
"The cause of so much amazement may appear sufficiently slight. Mr. Hooper, a gentlemanly person, of about thirty, though still a bachelor, was dressed with due clerical neatness, as if a careful wife had starched his band, and brushed the weekly dust from his Sunday's garb."
(to underline that Mr. Hooper was a tidy gentleman, who pays attention to his look)
"Yet perhaps the pale-faced congregation was almost as fearful a sight to the minister, as his black veil to them."
(to underline how much people pay attention to the minister's black veil and dislike it)
" Each member of the congregation, the most innocent girl, and the man of hardened breast, felt as if the preacher had crept upon them, behind his awful veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought."
(to underline how much the citizens dislike the veil)
"A few shook, their sagacious heads, intimating that they could penetrate the mystery; while one or two affirmed that there was no mystery at all, but only that Mr. Hooper's eyes were so weakened by the midnight lamp as to require a shade."
"How strange," said a lady, "that a simple black veil, such as any woman might wear on her bonnet, should become such a terrible thing on Mr. Hooper's face."
" All through life that piece of crepe had hung between him and the world; it had separated him from cheerful brotherhood and woman's love, arid kept him in that saddest of all prisons, his own heart; and still it lay upon his face, as if to deepen the gloom of his darksome chamber, and shade him from the sunshine of eternity."
"After performing the ceremony, Mr. Hooper raised a glass of wine to his lips, wishing happiness to the new-married couple in a strain of mild pleasantry that ought to have brightened the features of the guests, like a cheerful gleam from the hearth."
oxymoron:
" And yet the faint, sad smile, so often there, now seemed to glimmer from its obscurity, and linger on Father Hooper's lips."
" Father Hooper fell back upon his pillow, a veiled corpse, with a faint smile lingering on the lips"
personification:
"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. Do you not feel it so?"
(it's a personification of the black veil, which can not influence a person)
" The people trembled, though they but darkly understood him when he prayed that they, and himself, and all of mortal race, might be ready, as he trusted this young maiden had been, for the dreadful hour that should snatch the veil from their faces."
(it's a personification of the veil too)
"I had a fancy," replied she, "that the minister and the maiden's spirit were walking hand in hand."
Syntactical
polysyndeton
" All through life that piece of crape had hung between him and the world: it had separated him from cheerful brotherhood and woman's love, and kept him in that saddest of all prisons, his own heart; and still it lay upon his face, as if to deepen the gloom of his darksome chamber, and shade him from the sunshine of eternity."
"...he paid due reverence to the hoary heads, saluted the middle-aged with kind dignity as their friend and spiritual guide, greeted the young with mingled authority and love, and laid his hands on the little children's heads to bless them."
"Know, then, this veil is a type and a symbol, and I am bound to wear it ever, both in light and darkness, in solitude and before the gaze of multitudes, and as with strangers, so with my familiar friends."
"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."
Graphic
capitalization
"THE SEXTON stood in the porch of Milford meetinghouse, pulling busily at the bell rope."
The story was rather interesting to read and to work with. It makes think about life and veils we wear every day. If somebody differs in any way from all other people he can become lonely and people will avoid him.
In the end of the story, the minister points out how all the townspeople have treated him poorly, neglecting their own sin and focusing on his. But, it seems that they never truly understood, or repented, their actions, as the story closes with the frightful thought that the minister’s face still lay behind the veil even in death.
Also the veil may be treated as a mirror making all the townspeople more aware of their own sins. The more aware they became of their own sinful nature, the more uncomfortable they were, and thus being around the minister and seeing his veil troubled them deeply, even during happy times.
