The Minister's Black Veil

Simone Sutton

10/20/09

AP English III

The Minister’s Black Veil

The minister wears a veil that obscures his face from everyone in town. In a way both the minister and the town’s people suffered from the veil in a way. The minister himself was burdened with a cloud of gloom and a constant reminder of a sin he has committed. The people who looked upon him from the congregation and around town were burdened with the creepiness and gloom that seemed to follow the minister around. They were also burdened with not knowing what caused him to wear the veil.

One day Reverend Hooper came out of his house wearing a black veil around his face, exciting the people of his congregation. The black veil was dark and creepy and made everyone very uncomfortable. “He has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face”, this line reflects a unanimous view that all of the towns people share. It is the veil that is making the aura around Mr. Hooper so dark and uncomfortable. It is strange that just one little change of the man’s appearance drastically altered everyone’s opinion of him. Through the town there were whispers and rumors about the meaning of the minister’s veil, but not one of them thought it would be a good idea to ask the minister about it. Only Elizabeth, his wife, would ask him directly of the meaning of his veil. Mr. Hooper tells her “… this veil is a type and a symbol, and I am bound to wear it ever…”” I have sorrows dark enough to be typified by a black veil”. His answer is complete yet, vague. He tells her why he wears the veil without giving her a reason. He is keeping a secret from her. Elizabeth comes up with the idea that he has sinned, and he does not say she is wrong. The fact of the matter is, is that Mr. Hooper will not remove his veil in his life time and asks that she jus deal with it. “Have patience with me, Elizabeth!...It is but a mortal veil—it is not for eternity”. He pleads to her that she realize the veil won’t be with him in the next life. Elizabeth, though, wants him to make an exception just for her. When he refuses, she leaves him. After that nobody in the town made an effort to make him remove his veil or ask him about. But the questions the people has still remained and followed him to his grave. While he lay on his deathbed no one was able to wrestle the answer out of him or remove the veil from his face.

Reverend Hooper’s experience from behind the veil, however, was a different one. Instead of having questions he had all of the answers. Only he knows why he wears the veil, and he only asks that the town’s people respect that. Whatever his sin was it burdened him so much he couldn’t even look at his own reflection. “Mr. Hooper raised a glass of wine to his lips…At that instant catching a glimpse of his figure in the looking-glass, the black veil involved his own spirit in the horror with which it overwhelmed all others….he … rushed forth onto the darkness”. Whatever the town’s people felt when that laid eyes on Mr. Hooper, he himself was not immune to it. This makes the peoples reaction somewhat more acceptable. Whatever the minister did it was powerful enough that he could not escape the thought of it unless he covered his face. And even then he could not avoid it forever. The minister’s veil is a punishment for his sin because wearing it had caused him pain while trying to prevent pain. “… did not intercept his sight, further that to give a darkened aspect to all living and inanimate things.” The veil didn’t make his life impossible to live but it did make it hard. Every where he looked there would be a dark cloud over head following him around like the rumors circling the town. A punishment for his sin that he probably did not for see was being separated from his wife. He probably hoped that she would be the one person who would accept him even with the veil.

One final though concerning this story is, what was the sin the minister committed in the first place? On the first day Mr. Hooper wears the veil, he presides over the funeral of a young woman. “… to take a last farewell of his deceased parishioner. As he stooped, the veil hung straight down from his forehead, so that if her eyelids had not been closed forever, the dead maiden might have seen her face…. At the instant the clergyman’s features were disclosed, the corpse has slightly shuddered”. The dead girl reacted to the minister’s face. Of all of the people who would see the minister’s face after he veiled it. It was this dead girl. After the funeral one of the town’s persons remarked; “I had a fancy that the minister and the maiden’s spirit were walking hand in hand”. Somehow the minister and the girl had a connection that over came even death. The last point is that Mr. Hooper refused to tell his wife the reason for the veil even when she threatened to leave him. He could have stopped her but instead he let her leave. All of the facts could suggest that Mr. Hooper had an affair with the Girl who just died. Considering that the author in Nathaniel Hawthorn, it is a plausible assumption.

The Black Veil caused pain for many people; the minister, his wife, and the towns people. It was not the reason for the veil but, what the veil represents. The secrets that it held were dark and mysterious. The veil is a symbol of evil secrets, and when it is put on the minister, a symbol of righteous good; it obscured the line between good and evil.