The Adventure Of The German Student 'And The Minister's Black Veil'
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When people hear the word “romantic,” they usually think of love and romance which is not the case with the 19th century artistic, literary, and intellectual movement of Romanticism. Many of the stories written during that era were full of common Romantic elements such as Strong emotions, a youthful innocent main character, symbolism, and abrupt endings. “The Adventure of the German Student” and “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving and “The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne are some of the Romantic short stories written during that time. Gottfried Wolfgang is a youthful and innocent main character which is a romantic element. He is a German student who is under the impression an evil influence has attached itself to…show more content… Later that day, Hooper goes to a funeral to pay his respects. One person there said they saw the corpse shudder upon seeing the Reverend's face when he leaned over and the veil fell away and another said they thought they saw Hooper and the corpse walking hand in hand. Those two events are examples of another element of Romanticism-supernatural/fantasy. As Reverend Hooper continues to wear the veil everyone around him becomes very uncomfortable because they can’t see his face. Most everyone wishes he would take the veil off, but only his fiancee, Elizabeth, is brave enough to ask. When Elizabeth asks, Hooper denies her request. He feels so strongly about not removing his veil so much when Elizabeth threatens to leave him if he doesn’t, he still does not remove his veil. He continues to wear the veil all his life regardless of how miserable his life is because of it. This shows how strong his emotions are on not taking off the veil. On his deathbed, Reverend Hooper is again asked if his veil can be removed, but Hooper says everyone wears a veil, or mask, and he will not take the veil off while he is on this earth. So the veil he wears all his life is a symbol for a mask which everyone wears because no one is their true