The Ministers Black Veil

Possible explanations?
-gave a moving sermon on secret sin-used to help
convey his message?
-performed a funeral service that afternoon for a young
lady who has passed away-proper symbol for
mourning?
(it is said that when he leaned over her corpse, her body
shuddered; also, 2 parishioners claim they saw him
walking with the young lady hand-in-hand)
However, performed a wedding that evening and KEPT
the veil! saw his reflection in his wine glass as hes
giving a toast, drops the glass, turns white, and runs
out.

7. Initially, what is Elizabeths reaction to

Hoopers veil?
She is not appalled and calm, she brings it up at the start
of her visit. She encourages him to chase away the gray
clouds, remove the veil, and the only evil she sees is
that its covering his face!
He refuses, she cries and leaves
He rationalizes that if she left him because of a veil, then
they were never meant to be.
She is with him at his death bed: There was a nurse, no
hired handmaiden of death, but one whose calm
affection had endured thus long, in secrecy, in solitude,
amid the chill of age, and would not perish, even at the
dying hour. She loved him all these years.

Over time, Father Hooper

The veil has one desirable effect; it leads to him becoming
an efficient clergyman. He became a man of power.
- His converts always regarded him with a dread
peculiar to themselves, affirming, though but
figuratively, that, before he brought them to celestial
light, they had been with him behind the black veil. Its
gloom enabled him to sympathize all dark affections.
- Dying sinners cried aloud for Mr. Hooper
- Strangers traveled long distances to attend his services
and see the veil
- Mr. Hooper was appointed to preach the election
sermon.
- He acquired a name throughout the New England
churches, Father Hooper

The minister called to his death bed tries to convince

him, one last time, to remove the veil. Father
Hooper responds: Never! On earth, Never!
Why do you tremble at me alone? Tremble at each
other! I look around me and, lo! On every visage a
Black Veil!
Still veiled, they laid him in his coffin, and a veiled
corpse they bore him to the grave.

The Romantics-Gothic Works

So far we have read:
1. The Fall of the House of Usher-Edgar Allan Poe
2. Legend of Sleepy Hollow- Washington Irving
3. The Devil and Tom Walker- Washington Irving
4. The Raven- Edgar Allan Poe
5. The Ministers Black Veil- Nathaniel Hawthorne

For Tomorrow:
Make sure you have read all of the aforementioned
works
1. Choose one of the following texts and describe the setting and how it
creates the overall mood/atmosphere of the piece. How does it affect
or enhance the characters and the plot?
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The Devil and Tom Walker
2. Choose one of the following unreliable narrators and explain how
their distorted perspective affects the readers understanding of the
story. What details of the story become questionable once the
reliability of the narrator is called into question?
Narrator in House of Usher
Narrator in The Raven

3. Discuss three events in the life of author Edgar

Allan Poe which you feel directly contributed to his
melancholy and macabre storytelling.

4. Choose two of the following symbols and discuss

their meaning.
The raven
The black veil
The fissure in the house of Usher
The devils mark on Tom Walker