Similarities Between Hawthorne And The Minster's Black Veil

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Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne were two authors who put a certain focus in their stories. They had a sense of how to craft and shape it that could mirror real life. They focused on creating characters that were not flat and two dimensional, but instead could represent actual issues and struggles that reflected reality. They wrote stories that placed these characters in different, and sometimes unusual, situations that would produce different results. They showed that while bending reality a bit, they could reflect the inside of the mind. Their characters often have to make difficult decisions, presenting a likeness to the types people have to make it real life. For Poe, a lot of his stories were crafted by mirroring the human psyche. …show more content…

Poe crafted stories by mirroring what different struggles a person could wage within them. Hawthorne would shape his stories similarly, but more having to do with human nature. He too could write about a man’s dark side, just like Poe. In his story “Wakefield,” his main character deserts his wife and watches her from a couple blocks over for two decades before revealing himself. The story ends ambiguously as he finally confronts his wife. Wakefield showed two different types of lifestyles: the responsibility to family and the want for freedom. Hawthorne presented the view of human nature in “The Minster’s Black Veil” with the minster spending years wearing the black cloth, without ever giving anyone a true inclination why. Reverend Hooper wearing the veil gives the impression that he could be hiding some sort of sin he committed. Hawthorne deliberately leaves this ambiguous, just like why Wakefield left and decided to come back, to mirror reality and the uncertainty of it. Both Poe and Hawthorne present characters who are complex and intricate. They are difficult and make odd (or maddening) decision, which realtes to just how complex and complicated reality

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