ENGLISH 11
STUDY GUIDE: Anti-Transcendentalism
Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil”
pp. 340-352
Hawthorne’s Anti-Transcendentalism
Fill in the Blank
“Hawthorne believed that ______was the ______force in the world, and his fiction expresses a ______vision of ______affairs” (338).
Vocabulary (p. 339)
1. venerable
2. iniquity
3. indecorous
4. ostentatious
5. sagacious
6. vagary
7. tremulous
8. waggery
9. impertinent
10. obstinacy
Literary Terms
1. Allegory (p. 339)
2. Symbol (p. 339)
Literary Analysis: Use your textbook, please.
1. “The passage beginning ‘That mysterious emblem’ is the first suggestion that the veil is a symbol. What might the veil symbolize?” (342).
2. “What might these details about Mr. Hooper’s fiancée add to the parable’s moral?” (346)
3. “What message is conveyed by the passage beginning ‘But, even amid his grief’” (348).
4. “What does the minister of Westbury’s question suggest about the veil’s symbolic meaning?” (351).
Melville’s Moby Dick
Vocabulary (p. 357)
1. inscrutable
2. maledictions
3. prescient
4. pertinaciously
Literary Analysis: Use your textbook, please.
1. “What might the ‘dents’ on Ahab’s furrowed brow symbolize?” (359).
2. “Why are the Pequod’s planks dented?” (359).
3. “What does Ahab’s treatment of the gold coin suggest about its presence as a symbol?” (360).
4. “What insights into the whale’s symbolic meaning can you gain from a close reading of this passage?” (362, paragraph 4).
5. “What is Ahab’s symbolic purpose in having his harpooners drink from their weapons?” (364).
6. “What does the wind symbolize to Aha\b?” (365).
7. “What does Ahab realize when he sees Parsee’s body lashed to Moby Dick?” (369).
8. “What is symbolized by the red flag streaming from Tashtego?” (371).
9. “What thematic elements come together in Ahab’s climactic speech?” (372 – 373).
TEST REVIEW:
1. Why does Captain Ahab seek vengeance against the white whale?
2. How does Ahab persuade the crew to help him find the whale in Moby-Dick?
3. In Moby-Dick, what does the gold coin symbolize for the crew?
4. In Moby-Dick, who continually tries to make Ahab call off his mission of revenge?
5. In Moby-Dick, what relationship between Ahab and Moby-Dick does this passage symbolize? “How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond.”
6. In Moby-Dick, what is the symbolic meaning of Ahab having his crew drink from their weapons?
7. In Moby-Dick, why is it symbolic for Ahab to compare himself with his ship's mast?
8. In Moby-Dick, what does the whale symbolize to Ahab in this passage? “Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect … his forehead smote the ship's starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled.”
9. In “The Minister's Black Veil: A Parable,” why do the parishioners have such an intense response to seeing the minister's veil?
10. From this passage in “The Minister's Black Veil: A Parable,” what can you infer about the beliefs of the minister's congregation? “… and while he prayed, the veil lay heavily on his uplifted countenance. Did he seek to hide it from the dread Being whom he was addressing?”
HONORS:
1. What do Ahab’s rambling monologues reveal about his character?
2. What is the chief significance of Ahab's being drowned by his own harpoon line?
3. What are the central themes from the selections?
4. How is nature portrayed in Moby Dick?
5. Which detail in the following passage is most clearly a symbol?
a. A sky hawk that tauntingly had followed the main-truck downwards from its natural home among the stars, … this bird now chanced to intercept its broad fluttering wing between the hammer and the wood: and simultaneously feeling that ethereal thrill, the submerged savage beneath, in his deathgrasp, kept his hammer frozen there: and so the bird of heaven, with archangelic shrieks, and his imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive form folded in the flag of Ahab, went down with his ship.
6. Which detail listed in the choices below most clearly suggests that Ahab's footprints are a symbol in the following passage?
a. Soon his steady, ivory stride was heard, as to and fro he paced his old rounds, upon planks so familiar to his tread, that they were all over dented, like geological stones, with the peculiar mark of his walk. Did you fixedly gaze, too, upon that ribbed and dented brow; there also, you would see still stranger footprints—the footprints of his one unsleeping, ever-pacing thought.
7. Which of these aspects of nature does the white whale not symbolize?
a. destructiveness
b. immortality
c. spiritual comfort
d. beauty
8. To Ahab's mind, Moby-Dick symbolizes a wall that ….
9. What does the sea probably symbolize in this final sentence from the selection?
a. “Then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it had rolled five thousand years ago.”
10. Over what group does the veiled minister seem to have the most power?
11. What does the village physician most likely represent in the story?
ESSAY:
1. Examine Ahab in his role as captain of the whaling ship. In what ways does he seem to be a good captain? In what ways is he a bad one? Answer these questions in an essay in which you support your opinions with details from the selection.
2. What are the characteristics of the Puritans and their religion as portrayed by Hawthorne in this story? Do you think he has a negative or positive opinion of them? What do you think is his opinion of Mr. Hooper? Write an essay answering these questions.