Arrogance in Hawthorne S Male Protagonists Essay

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Minister's Black Veil" and "The Birth-mark:" Hubris

Many of Nathaniel Hawthorne's works are seen as a critique of Puritan ideology and the dangers of having a judgmental attitude. "The Minister's Black Veil" illustrates the Reverend Hooper's vindictive and narrow-minded attitude not to others but to himself. He punishes himself in perpetuity for some unnamed sin although at the end of his life, right before his death, he proclaims that all human beings wear a black veil of sin, not just himself. "The Birth-mark," in contrast, depicts the dangerous overconfidence of a scientist who is certain that he can render God's creation better than God himself in his attempts to change his wife's appearance. But while Aylmer's actions are more obviously arrogant, both men are essentially acting as judge and jury over others on earth, rather than leaving that judgment to God himself.

At the beginning of "The Birthmark," Aylmer's quest to rid his wife's cheek of the dreaded birthmark is very clearly shown to arise from the desire to improve upon nature, not because his wife wishes to have her beauty improved. He says to her: "Dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature that this slightest possible defect, which we hesitate whether to term a defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection" (Hawthorne 1). Georgina only grows obsessed with his quest because she fears her husband will not love her if she does not become perfect in his eyes. However, the Reverend Hooper similarly wants to improve upon nature, namely his own nature.

Like the Reverend Hooper, Aylmer cannot see that the world is beautiful as it is, he wants to make sure that it engineered by him as he desires. Sexual jealousy of Georgina's previous lovers are also a factor -- Aylmer wants to feel as if his wife is solely his creation, not the creation of God. "Even Pygmalion, when his sculptured woman assumed life, felt not greater ecstasy than mine will be," he says, referring to the sculptor who fell in love with his own statue (Hawthorne 3). Aylmer gloats in the power he will have to remove the birthmark: "Believe me, Georgiana, I even rejoice in this single imperfection, since it will be such a rapture to remove it" (Hawthorne 3). Unlike Georgina's previous admirers who praised this so-called imperfection, Aylmer only loves it because of its ability to allow him to display his prowess.

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Just like the hubristic Alymer, the Reverend Hooper clearly strives to set himself above other, mere mortals in terms of how he interacts with them. The veil is disfiguring and unnatural in appearance. "I can't really feel as if good Mr. Hooper's face was behind that piece of crape,' said the sexton" (Hawthorne 2). Aylmer strives to make his wife more perfect as a result of his actions while Reverend Hooper strives to make himself more ugly than God has made him, in punishment for unnamed sins, sins that not even his fellow believes (or God) have accused him. The veil sets him apart from his fellow human beings, to whom he should be ministering, just like Aylmer's obsession with the veil sets him apart from his wife: "Truly do I," says one of the parishioners, "and I would not be alone with him for the world. I wonder he is not afraid to be alone with himself!" (Hawthorne 3).

Hooper's decision to wear the veil creates a divide between himself and the rest of the world. When he buries a young woman, he is seen as more like her -- the dead -- than his living congregants and when he goes to marry a hopeful young couple, the horror his image evokes is terrifying. Even his own wife is terrified and he refuses to reveal to her why he wears the veil: "If it be a sign of mourning ... I, perhaps, like most other mortals, have sorrows dark enough to be typified by a black veil" (Hawthorne 6). Once again, this rejection of humanity seems arrogant and taken upon himself as a way of seeming different rather than a conscious demonstration of true mourning. If it was a lesson that he….....

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