The stories “The Maypole of Merry Mount, ” “The Minister’s Black Veil” and “The Wedding Knell” by Nathaniel Hawthorne contain themes that deal with the concept of darkness and death visiting overtake life. The aspects of Romanticism present in these testimonies represent the extremes of this movement. Romanticism deals with independence and spontaneity in delight and illumination, and it also deals with wildness of nature—especially the dark side, such as storms and dark atmospheres. In his take care of the heroes, plots, and settings in these stories, 1 finds that Hawthorne uses these elements to conflict together.
Consequently , in these three stories a single finds the lighter part of Romanticism coming underneath attack from your darker aspect in a representational representation great versus evil. In “The Maypole of Merry Mount, ” the scene opens to fun, as those in the area are proven to have superb celebrations about the Maypole. The carefree gaiety does indicate the idea of impulse and vivacity that is an element of Romanticism.
Yet Hawthorne combines this kind of with the darker (gothic) part of Romanticism in his statement that “Jollity and gloom were fighting for an empire” (Hawthorne, 55).
This foreshadows the approaching of a impediment on their festivals, as Hawthorne identifies shadows in individual (Puritan) form that come to pay the lighting of the get-togethers and announce them ungodly. This darkness is representative of hypocritical nasty and night that come to dispel the light and the good by making unlawful the use of the Maypole in dance and enjoyment. In this way, Hawthorne identifies the two Romantic gaiety and the medieval gloom and pits all of them against the other person in a battle that is earned by the darkness. Hawthorne shows this idea of gothic bad attacking light-hearted good likewise in “The Wedding Knell. “
Throughout the wedding of two elderly persons, the funeral engagement ring (knell) of the church bell starts spontaneously sounding. The dark which means of this incident becomes obvious in a spectator’s remark, “Good heavens! What an omen! ” (Hawthorne, 27) The idea of the mournful funeral bells tolling when wedding festivities should be happening gives a gothic element for this story as well. The story becomes ominous, while the idea of misfortune for wedding is implanted in the minds of the characters and readers. Hawthorne (through the smoothness of the groom) puts on a film as the groom goes in the cathedral in the center of several mourners.
He writes, “When the spectral procession got into contact with the ceremony, each few separated, and slowly diverged, till, in the middle, appeared a form, that had been worthily ushered within all this gloomy pomp, the death knell, and the funeral” (Hawthorne, 31). The effect of this is also Intimate in the medieval sense, will not demonstrate a sort of mixing or perhaps struggle between gaiety and gloom. Finally, “The Minister’s Black Veil” also demonstrates the gothic side of Romanticism as this Puritan minister, Mr. Hooper, is persistant in wearing a veil through the decades that he provides his town.
He even wears this when together with his wife and also to his serious. The fact which the veil can be black reminds one of loss of life and night that are characteristic of the medieval aspect of Romanticism. This dark-colored veil symbolizes the bad of hypocrisy that mankind has a tendency to harbor. It can also be seen as evidence of the common theme in all the testimonies: that of the conflict between gloomy and festive factors of Romanticism. The minister’s wife says to him, “There is usually nothing terrible in this part of crape, except that it conceals a face which I am always delighted to appearance upon. Arrive, good friend, let the sunlight shine via behind the cloud” (Hawthorne, 45).
From this speech it could be seen that the veil helps prevent the minister’s wife coming from experiencing the joy of seeing her partner’s face. It represents, consequently , an attempt made by shadow to obscure the sunshine of joy and liberty. The three stories by Hawthorne contain good themes with the conflict among good and evil, and each of these two contenders is definitely represented by two extreme conditions of Romanticism. The events in the stories get happy circumstances being frowned on by the legislation, circumstances, or perhaps by persons. In each case, medieval darkness triumphs in its tries to eliminate happiness and freedom.
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