Siddhartha’s goal was to find nirvana. He constantly sought this, in many different ways with many different teachers. He wanted to be at one with the higher being, to be at one with the higher Self, with Atman. “One must find the source within one’s own Self, one must possess it…These were Siddhartha’s thoughts; this was his thirst, his sorrow” (Hesse 8). Thus Siddhartha sought nirvana constantly, and this was his only care.
Siddhartha’s path lead him through constant re-evaluations, keeping him focused on himself. He began as the son of a wealthy Brahmin, sheltered from the real world and any experience with it, but having the best education he could obtain. He began his life at home, as a thinker, possessing wisdom and thoughts he had yet to earn through experience.
Seeking nirvana, Siddhartha assessed his situation and came to the conclusion that he had learned all there was to learn from his home and his teachers there. So he found new teachers, the Samanas. Through their teachings, he could only find the higher self by killin…
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The Central Conflict, Climax and Resolution in The Minister’s Black Veil
The Central Conflict, Climax and Resolution in “The Minister’s Black Veil”
This essay will analyze Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil” to determine the central conflict in the tale, its climax and partial resolution, using the essays of literary critics to help in this interpretation.
In the opinion of this reader, the central conflicts – the relation between the protagonist and antagonist (Abrams 225) – in the tale are an internal one, a spiritual-moral conflict within the minister, the Reverend Mr. Hooper, and an external one with the world at large represented by the congregation. Wilson Sullivan in “Nathaniel Hawthorne” tells where the author got the idea of a conflict between good and evil:
He looked back, deeply back into America’s Puritan past, the era of the New England theocracy, when the conflict of good and evil, freedom and tyranny, love and hatred was more explicit, more rigidly defined, free of the ambiguities of an increasingly pluralistic society, governed by a shared morality (70).
At the outset of the tale, “The Minister’s Black Veil,” the sexton is tolling the church bell and simultaneously watching Mr. Hooper’s door, when suddenly he says, “But what has good Parson Hooper got upon his face?” The surprise which the sexton displayed is repeated in the astonishment of the onlookers: “With one accord they started, expressing more wonder. . .” The reason is this: “Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his face, so low as to be shaken by his breath” is a black veil. The 30 year old, unmarried parson receives a variety of reactions from his congregation:
“I can’t really feel as if good Mr. Hooper’s face was behind that piece of crape”
“He has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face”
“Our parson has gone mad!”
Few could refrain from twisting their heads towards the door. . . .
. . . more than one woman of delicate nerves was forced to leave the
meeting-house.
At this point begins the external conflict of the drama – between the minister and the people of his congregation, which will last until his death. Except for the sable veil, Reverend Hooper is quite a compatible and sociable personality:
Mr. Hooper had the reputation of a good preacher, but not an energetic one: he strove to win his people heavenward by mild, persuasive influences, rather than to drive them thither by the thunders of the Word.