In fact, this concept deals with how authors capture their characters’ trauma and fear. In Gothic novels, no matter the setting or villain, the sublime exists as a different experience than appreciating natural beauty. Examples of Gothic literature range from dark romances to supernatural mysteries. This use of terror is called the sublime, which is an important tool in these narratives. Romantic literature elicits personal pleasure from natural beauty, and Gothic fiction takes this aesthetic reaction and subverts it by creating delight and confusion from terror. Essentially, Romanticism is a reaction against the Enlightenment, a time that revolutionized scientific thought, and emphasizes emotional response and intuition over clinical knowledge. Gothic literature is a combination of horror fiction and Romantic thought Romantic thought encompasses awe toward nature. With ghosts, spacious castles, and fainting heroes, Gothic fiction conveys both thrill and intrigue. Just as the Reverend Hooper’s black veil obscures his face from the townspeople, so the narrator’s distant perspective obscures his thoughts and feelings from the reader.The Sublime’s Effects in Gothic Fiction John Martin’s “The Great Day of His Wrath” provokes an eye-popping, apocalyptic view of the sublime. This style matches the story’s theme of the fundamental unknowability of others’ minds. The story is written from a distant, third-person point of view, with very little insight given into the thoughts and feelings of its characters. In this story, the “monsters” aren’t literal, but rather the possibility of some secret sin committed by Reverend Hooper. The idea that “ghost or fiend” might “consort” with him behind his black veil further pushes this passage into the realm of Gothic literature, which was often filled with ghosts, vampires, and other supernatural horrors. Here the words “cloud,” “ambiguity,” “enveloped,” “terrors,” “shadow,” “darkly,” and “dreadful” all evoke the obscurity and uncertainty typical of Gothic horror-it is not what is seen, but rather what is left unseen, the possibility of monsters lurking in the shadows, that inspires fear in the Gothic. Even the lawless wind, it was believed, respected his dreadful secret, and never blew aside the veil. With self-shudderings and outward terrors, he walked continually in its shadow, groping darkly within his own soul, or gazing through a medium that saddened the whole world.
It was said that ghost or fiend consorted with him there. Thus, from beneath the black veil, there rolled a cloud into the sunshine, an ambiguity of sin or sorrow, which enveloped the poor minister, so that love or sympathy could never reach him. This shift reflects the feelings of dread and horror that the black veil inspires in Milford’s townspeople. Hawthorne’s style consistently shifts into this more Gothic mode whenever Reverend Hooper’s black veil is being described. The style of the story vacillates between fairly concrete, straightforward descriptions of events and long, abstract sentences filled with poetic flourishes that evoke intense emotions, a style typical of Gothic literature. Hawthorne uses the language of the Gothic Sublime, evoking obscurity and mystery, to explore the idea that people’s minds are fundamentally unknowable, not only to each other but also to themselves. “The Minister’s Black Veil” follows in this tradition of the psychological Gothic. Nineteenth-century Gothic literature was especially interested in the obscurity and mystery of the human psyche a dark forest or a haunted house could serve as a metaphor for the uncharted regions of one’s own mind. The Gothic dwelt in scenery that was obscure or filled with unseen dangers-a dark forest, for example, or a misty moor. While Romanticism used the Sublime to create an effect of self-transcendence in readers, Gothic literature tended to use the Sublime to inspire fear and terror. Gothic literature was similarly interested in the Sublime, but with a subtle distinction.
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