How does "The Minister's Black Veil" reflect the Romantic period?

Additionally,

The Minister's Black Veil has characteristics that are unique to the Romantic period, particularly those which are directly connected with Gothic literature. In Gothic literature there are several elements to be considered but all of them may not be included in one same specific story. However but in The Minister's Black Veil there are plenty to consider: The inevitability of fate, the failure of human nature, the limitations of humanity, mystery and suspense, nostalgia and inner conflict, sadness and the disconnect between man and his nature.

Add to this the atmosphere of fear, the possibility of inner terror, and the curious nature of an impossible problem also have a lot to do with the Romantic characteristic of this short story.

How does "The Minister's Black Veil" reflect the Romantic period?

There are two areas where I can find a connection between "The Minister's Black Veil" and American Romanticism.

One is the importance of individual freedom in the sense that each person has the right to choose for himself.  In the short story, Reverend Hooper chooses ro wear a black veil over his face for the rest of his life.

Though many in the congregation believe it is an atonement for some terrible sin he has committed, the reader discovers (on Hooper's death bed) that he has chosen to wear the veil to reflect the hidden sins within himself, but reminds those nearby that all God's creatures have the same hidden sins, and therefore, instead of wearing a black veil, they hide their sins behind a false front, like wearing a mask.

The only other characteristics of American Romantic writing is that of "the supernatural/occult." In a literary sense, the "supernatural" refers to that which is "beyond" the natural, physical world. While we think of the supernatural as vampires, zombies and aliens, in Romantic literature, the supernatural would have included God, angels, demons, ghosts, etc. (The reference to "the occult" is, obviously, not used in Hawthorne's work.)

In terms of the other American Romantic (and European Romantic) literary characteristics, most concentrate on feelings, imagination, nature, innocence, nature as a means to reach God, and inspiration from legends and myths, to name a few.  I do not see any of these in the story, and believe that the Puritans would have seen these things as frivolous and foolish.  These themes did not coincide with the Puritan's perception of the world, and man's place in that world.

Hawthorne deals with extremely serious issues, as seen in "The Minister's Black Veil," and in my experience, does not include the above-mentioned characteristics in his work.

(Another of his famous works is "Young Goodman Brown;" the supernatural is involved here also, not fantasy or imagination because the Puritans believed as strongly in Satan as a supernatural figure, as they did God.)

Hawthorne is intensely focused on the inner-man, and man's daily struggle against evil, in pursuit of goodness.  His Puritan background does not deal with anything but facts as gathered from the scriptures, and a sober commitment to search for God's will in all things.

With all this in mind, Hawthorne is considered an American Romantic writer.

How does "The Minister's Black Veil" reflect the Romantic period?

Romantic literature often focuses heavily on emotion and can privilege the idea of rebellion against established social convention, and "The Minister's Black Veil" does both.  Certainly, Mr. Hooper's choice to wear the black veil comes at a heavy emotional toll, and the symbolism behind the veil amounts to a rebellion against established convention.  The veil, as Mr. Hooper intimates on numerous occasions, is a material symbol of an intangible state: he believes that all human beings are sinful creatures, and yet we all try to conceal our sinful natures.  The veil represents this attempt at concealment, and since we all insist on hiding, Mr. Hooper's refusal to likewise hide is the way in which he rebels against the social standard upheld by everyone else.  His parishioners, even his fiancee, are made extremely uncomfortable by his unwillingness to conceal his "secret sin," the way they do, and thus he becomes an emotional and social outcast.  In these ways, then, with its focus on emotions and rebellion against norms, "The Minister's Black Veil" qualifies as a Romantic text.

How does "The Minister's Black Veil" reflect the Romantic period?

This text is affected by the period during which Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote it, the Romantic period, because it focuses on the personal experience and feelings of the individual. Mr. Hooper, a Puritan minister, begins to wear a black veil that covers his eyes and nose, and his congregation is seriously disconcerted by his new accessory. Evidently, the veil symbolizes the secret sinful nature that he believes each person harbors and hides from his or her peers.

While he cannot bring himself to explain this to members of his church because it would be too hard to admit, even for a minister, he prompts his fiancee, Elizabeth, to put it together, and he sees the look of recognition on her face when she does. This idea of "secret sin" is the subject of the first sermon he preaches after he appears wearing the black veil. The veil works to symbolize these secrets because keeping the secrets prevents people from figuratively seeing who others really are.

In hiding my sin from others, for example, and pretending that I am sinless, I prevent others from learning or knowing who I really am, and vice versa when they do the same. Because the story takes the individual's own experience and feelings as its subject, it is revealed as a Romantic text. The Romantics privileged individual experience and emotion over just about everything else.

What literary elements are used in "The Minister's Black Veil"?

In the story, Nathaniel Hawthorne alternates narrative with dialogue. He employs a third-person narrator who provides background, insights into the characters, and plot points. The dialogue shows the townspeople discussing matters among themselves, which is often different than what they say to the minister; for example:

"Our parson has gone mad!" cried Goodman Gray ...

In the narrative, Hawthorne often highlights a point by using understatement or modifiers, thus adding an ironic twist to the meaning. He refers to the women who react strongly to the veil as having “delicate nerves” and underplays the effects of the congregants’ behavior.

[P]erhaps the pale-faced congregation was almost as fearful a sight to the minister as his black veil to them.

Hawthorne also uses parallel structure to organize differing information and for emphasis. When the congregants leave, the narrator uses the same sentence structure to describe their various actions. This example also uses the literary device of anaphora, repetition of initial words.

Some gathered in little circles ... some went homeward alone ... some talked loudly and profaned the Sabbath-day with ostentatious laughter.

The author also uses allusion, reference to an historical event, a person, or another literary work. He refers to another one of his own stories about a marriage ceremony when the “wedding knell” is sounded.

In contrast to the frequent use of understatement, Hawthorne also uses exaggeration, which increases as the reputation of Mr. Hooper’s veil increases. He introduces hyperbole, extreme exaggeration, to show how the townspeople’s gossip progresses to outrageous claims. In one instance, the narrator relates the townspeople’s claim that the minister fears his own reflection:

In truth, his own antipathy to the veil was known to be so great that he never willingly passed before a mirror ... lest ... he should be affrighted by himself.

As their fear increases, so does his power, until they claim he even controls the moment of death:

Dying sinners cried aloud for Mr. Hooper and would not yield their breath till he appeared ...

Why do characters in "The Minister's Black Veil" react as they do, and what does it reveal about them? Does the veil isolate the minister and enhance his religious role? Does it reflect Dark Romanticism?

1. Superficially, members of Mr. Hooper's congregation react the way they do because it is just plain weird to them that their minister, without explanation or warning, simply walks out of his house one day wearing a black veil that covers his face. "[It] seemed to consist of two folds of crape, which entirely concealed his features." It can be extremely off-putting to speak to someone when one cannot see that person's eyes, but to come face-to-face with one who wishes to conceal his entire face so that an observer cannot see any part of it would feel even stranger. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then obscuring the eyes seems to indicate that the person has something to hide, and this revelation also makes people feel very uncomfortable. One old woman says, "'He has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face.'"

In terms of how their reaction reveals their inner character, the subject of Mr. Hooper's sermon that day is particularly illuminating. Its

subject had reference to secret sin, and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient can detect them.  [....] [They] felt as if the preacher had crept upon them, behind his awful veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought.

And this feeling compels them to stop asking him to dinner, to stop conversing with him in the street. They know that he knows that they have secret sins on their souls, sins that they successfully hide from everyone else but cannot hide -- at least not totally -- from him.

2. The veil absolutely isolates him.  If the thing we fear most is the public revelation of our secret sinful natures, then people would automatically shy away from the person they believe could reveal it. However, it does make him a better minister.  

By the aid of his mysterious emblem -- for there was no other apparent cause -- he became a man of awful power over souls that were in agony for sin. His converts always regarded him with a dread peculiar to themselves, affirming, though by figuratively, that, before he brought them to celestial light, they had been with him behind the black veil. Its gloom, indeed, enabled him to sympathize with all dark affections.

The consciousness that their minister fully understands them because he is like them, for converts who may have led sinful lives, means that they feel a great deal more comfortable with his knowledge of their sins. Because his wearing of the veil is an admission of his own guilt, theirs might seem lessened by comparison. This allows him to be more effective in his job. For others who are not comforted by the knowledge that he is aware of their secret sin, he is, at least, a more compelling figure for his own admission.

3. This story would not fall into the category of Dark Romanticism. Stories that are categorized in this way often present supernatural creatures (i.e. vampires, werewolves, etc.) as illustrative of the dark side of human nature. Further, there is nothing irrational or insane about Mr. Hooper's behavior, so it could not qualify on that front either. Just as Romanticism is more concerned with our capacity for goodness, Dark Romanticism is more concerned with our capacity for evil. This story doesn't shed light on humanity as evil, per se, but just seriously misguided (and perhaps somewhat tortured by our error).

How does "The Minister's Black Veil" reflect anti-transcendentalism?

Anti-transcendentalism, also known as dark romanticism, was a very pessimistic philosophical view of literature that stood in contrast to the views of transcendentalists such as Emerson, who were very optimistic about human nature. The central ideas of dark romanticism can be seen in this story through the insistence on human sin and guilt that impacts all characters. The story paints quite a sober picture about humans and the way that, even the best of humans, are tainted by sin. Note what Mr. Hooper says before dying when they try to remove his veil at the end of the story:

"Why do you tremble at me alone?" cried he, turning his veiled face round the circle of pale spectators. "Tremble also at each other! Have men avoided me, and women shown no pity, and children screamed and fled, only for my black veil? What, but the mystery which it obscurely typifies, has made this piece of crape so awful? When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best beloved; when man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived, and die! I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!"

This last speech he makes before dying clearly points towards the symbolic meaning of the black veil. It is shown to represent the secret sin that acts as a barrier between us all. Symbolically, therefore, Mr. Hooper is able to look at everyone around him and see a black veil on their faces too. All he has done is gone one step further and placed a literal veil over his face to represent the sin that all humans suffer from. Such a pessimistic view of humanity fits perfectly with anti-transcendentalist beliefs about humans.

How does Nathaniel Hawthorne use Transendentalism in "The Minister's Black Veil"?

The great Transcendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who held that each individual can reach higher truths through intuition, wrote that "nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind"; Emerson also stated, "Insist on yourself; never imitate."  Thus, individualism is an important aspect of Transcendentalism as is the arrival at spiritual truths through intuition.  The individuals who called themselves Transcendentalists believed in human perfectibility, and they worked to achieve this goal.

Representative of the Transcendental ideology, the very individualistic Reverend Mr. Hooper, who has donned the black veil and given his sermon on secret sin, strives to exemplify how men and women can discover spiritual truths by looking inward, and thereby achieve human perfectibility.  With the veil over his face, members of the congregation cannot view him, so they must look inward; without a face to see, they must communicate with their spiritual selves, thus learning. Hooper expresses this existential aloneness when he tells his fiancee, Elizabeth,

It is but a mortal veil--it is not for eternity!  Oh! you know not how lonely I am, and how frightened to be alone behind my black veil.

Yet, in his desire to get others to arrive at spiritual truths, the minister refuses to remove his veil, even on his deathbed, hoping that others will "insist upon being [themselves]":

When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend, the lover to his best-beloved; when man does not vainl shrink from the eye of his Creator.... 

Individualistic, searching for higher spiritual truths, the Reverend Mr. Hooper, much like the Transcendentalist, summons others to look behind their own created veils and find their true souls.

How does "The Minister's Black Veil" reflect the Romantic view of human nature's darker side?

Often, Romantic writers focused on the wonderful things of which humankind is capable. We have an enormous capacity for generosity and creativity and love, as well as the ability to find truth in and be healed by nature. However, the Dark Romantic writers tended to focus a great deal more on the darker side of humankind: the terrors or evils or vice of which we are also capable. Thus, in "The Minister's Black Veil," the commonality that Hawthorne finds among all of us is not only our inherent propensity toward sin but also our shared desire to hide our sinfulness from everyone else: dark stuff indeed.

Mr. Hooper's first sermon after donning the black veil takes as its subject "secret sin, and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient can detect them." The minister has begun to wear the veil in an effort to be honest about the figurative veil that we all wear when we portray ourselves to others as sinless creatures. We all hide behind such a veil, and so, to represent this sad state of humanity -- a state where none of us is ever truly honest with anyone else or even ourselves -- he wears a material veil. Given, then, that the story focuses exclusively on our sin, without reference to our goodness, it is much more in line with Dark Romanticism.

How does "The Minister's Black Veil" reflect the transcendentalist period?

This particular story can be more effectively contrasted than compared to the transcendentalist ways of thinking.  The transcendentalists believed in humanity's fundamental goodness, that each of us has a spark of the divine within us, and that each of us can grow our relationship with God ourselves, without a mediating figure such as a minister or priest.  Such optimism is decidedly absent from "The Minister's Black Veil."  Hawthorne was not a transcendentalist, and he typically seemed much more interested in exploring the darker aspects of human nature than the lighter ones, more interested in the effects of our sin than the possibility of our inherent divinity.  This story, like most of Hawthorne's works, focuses on our sinfulness and the rather pessimistic idea that our highest priority is actually hiding the truth of our sinfulness from the world.  And, when we hide in this way, we make ourselves essentially unknowable to those around us, even deluding ourselves about the way God views us and our sins, driving a wedge between the individual and God.

What characteristics of Romanticism are evident in "The Minister's Black Veil"?

I would say that the most Romantic aspect of this story is the focus on the individual's emotions. Romantic thinkers believed that the emotions are more fundamental to the human experience than logic or reason because we do not have to be taught to feel intense emotion; we are born knowing how to feel. Reason and logic, on the other hand, have to be taught, and so Romantics reasoned that they are less crucial for our understanding of the world. So much of this story focuses on Mr. Hooper's feelings, the feelings of his parishioners, and even his fiancee. Additionally, everyone has very intense feelings regarding Mr. Hooper's off-putting black veil.

This story is more often characterized as a work of dark Romanticism, rather than typical Romanticism, because it focuses on our sinfulness rather than our goodness. Romantics most often believed in humanity's inherent goodness, but dark Romantics preferred to focus on the darkness within us. Mr. Hooper's black veil seems to symbolize the secret sinfulness that we all attempt to hide from those around us and which prevents us from being truly known by anyone. Rather than expressing some optimism about humanity, the story seems to convey the idea that we all try to hide our true natures and that few, if any, of us are brave enough to come clean.