Fear Of The Poem In Edgar Allan Poe's The Pit And The Pendulum

In "The Ministers Black Veil" by Nathaniel Hawthorne "The reason that it is difficult for the congregation and even his fiancée to look upon him is that they only see the veil. "The minister is hiding his face because he is afraid that what he is hiding will show to the people of the church and his fiancée. Mr. Hooper is wearing the veil because he committed a sin; and is hiding it from the town and his church First of all, Mr. Hooper is hiding behind the veil to ensconce his sins is because it is bigger than all the other sins everyone else has admitted. The article said that it could be him hiding a inclination he is having for a female. If that is the reason, then he would have to hide that from his church in order to not feel humiliated.

Without confessing what one has done will eventually lead to a life of fear, nervousness, and insecurity. Within the novel The Scarlett Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne gives a good representation of how secret sin will destroy the sinner, which is then shown by the change in character by Reverend Aurthur Dimmesdale. Within The Scarlett Letter Dimmesdale evolves because of the sin that he has committed. First off, in the beginning the start of The Scarlett Letter Dimmesdale is stated to be nervous

Mr. Hooper was forcing all of the people to look deeper within themselves and try to understand the veils true meaning “Such was the effect of this simple piece of crape, that more than one woman of delicate nerves was forced to leave the meeting-house. Yet perhaps the pale-faced congregation was almost as fearful a sight to the minister, as his black veil to them.” (Hawthorne 707) In reality, the veil represents the secrets everyone is hiding within himself or herself. The theme of the veil is the conflict between the dark, hidden side of man. The themes that are portrayed by the veil reveals, the tension between the minister and the community. Every person has something to hide from the world, the veil is symbolic for the cover up of the people’s secrets.

The conflict is that he is scared of being buried alive. The setting is dark and grim and creates a scary mood. The plot builds up his fear throughout the story. In the end, the character faces his fears

The main character, Mr. Hooper, wears a black veil over his face like a blanket of secrets. Elizabeth warns Mr. Hooper that she will not marry him if he wears the veil; however, he does not take it off even for love. “It had separated [Mr. Hooper] from cheerful brotherhood and woman’s love, and kept him in the saddest of prisons, his own heart ;…”( 312) is a quote that justifies how the veil caused him great grief. His secret beneath the veil had restricted him from loving again. Elizabeth

In The Minister’s Black Veil, the veil holds different meanings for the minister and for the people in his congregation. The congregation starts out confused about the meaning, and even though they get hints of the meaning over the years, they never understand it fully, and their obsessive fear of the minister continues even though he remains a good and harmless person. The minister seems to know what the symbolic meaning of the veil is, although he only reveals it slowly in bits and pieces until the climactic scene on his deathbed. He, too, views the veil with fear, because he sees it as a symbol of the secret sin in himself and everyone. In addition to the meaning the veil holds for the congregation and for the minister, it is important to consider the effect of the veil on the relationship between the two.

Hooper’s life after he started wearing the veil was so lonely and isolated he had no-one to comfort him at his death-bed. The veil is the most prominent symbol in the parable of The Minister's Black Veil. The veil represents the congregations doubts about salvation, the exposition of concealed sin, alienation, and Minister Hooper’s secret sin. Throughout the parable, Hawthorne provides clues as to what the veil symbolizes; for example, the words “I look around me and, lo, on every face I see a Black Veil!”. However, even with the subtle hints, the ambiguity of the veil still leaves readers and critics wondering what it

He “hung it because (he) knew in doing so (he) was committing a sin” (Poe 2). In carrying out this action knowing it was a sin shows how the man's mind is unstable and not in good standing. No person in their right mind carries out an action and wanting to sin while doing so. Moreover the short story “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving as well depicts the reoccurring theme of psychological issues. With is wife having been missing, “Tom Walker grew so anxious about the fate of his wife and property he set out to seek them” (Irving 327).

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye ” (“Motivational Quotes). In society, people are notorious for making assumptions about others right off the bat. In “ The Minister’s Black Veil” written by Nathaniel Hawthorne , this is true for the townspeople. Their reaction to the major change in Mr. Hooper’s appearance is a prime example of this problem. The way they excluded Mr. Hooper and talked about him behind his back backs up that fact that they were uninterested in trying to understand his decisions.

To summarize, Edgar Allan Poe’s stories illustrate how fear alters the character's mind and what the product is of such fear. Poe illustrates this through symbolism, irony, and imagery. Fear can be helpful by causing people to be cautious of their actions. However, people can also start to worry too much and become paranoid. In the end, Poe’s stories show people the differences of how to handle fear.

When we keep secrets we also keep guilt and guilt will destroy us from the inside. In the book of scarlet letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and how one woman who committed adultery with a character named dimmesdale who is the town revered. Dimmesdale kept secrets to maintaining his reputation but actions the guilt eats him from the inside. Dimmesdale the town revered for the puritan religion. He commits adultery with Hester and has a child, but instead of facing his sin he keeps inside for no one to know.

The minister and Hester both fail to let the rest of the colony know that it was the two together who brought a wicked sin into their Puritan lifestyle. Instead of being honest with himself and everyone around, Dimmesdale and Hester cover up their secret until it is physically impossible for him to resist confessing against the wish of his lover. Living a lifestyle of purity and honesty are both very important throughout Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne places heavy emphasis on the fact that living a life away from honesty and purity is hard on not only the body, but also the soul, when one is not honest with the mistakes they have made. Hawthorne’s work is proof that such a lifestyle can cause devastating and even fatal effects.

His mind is in constant turmoil from his immorality, transforming him into a guilt-ridden tortured soul, because of his secret. Hawthorne expresses Dimmesdale 's morbidness when he says, “Yet Mr. Dimmesdale would perhaps have seen this individual’s character more perfectly, if a certain morbidness, to which sick hearts are liable, had not rendered him suspicious of all mankind. Trusting no man as his friend, he could not recognize his enemy when the latter actually appeared” (135). Dimmesdale is living with Chillingworth, his physician, who is described as evil and tormenting towards Dimmesdale, yet, the minister does not know that his enemy is the one he is trusting. Furthermore, Dimmesdale attributes, “all his presentments to no other cause but his own morbid heart” (146).

Weighted down by his constant search for certainty, Goodman Brown became “a sad” and “desperate man” (395). His sin haunted him until his final breath, “for his dying hour was gloom” (395). In Young Goodman Brown, a young man falls to sin. Due to the Calvinist beliefs Goodman Brown held, he presumed that his justification would exempt him from the evils of sin. His conviction reflected the sin of presumption, and his presumption caused him to lose his conviction.