THE MINISTER'S BLACK VEIL--Nathaniel Hawthorne

THE MINISTER'S BLACK VEIL--Nathaniel Hawthorne

(Notes from A Reader's Guide to the Short Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne)

First published in 1835
Time of the story--the Great Awakening between 1730 and 1741

Sources:

In a footnote, Hawthorne cited Mr. Joseph Moody of York, Maine, for whom the symbol "had a different import. In early life he had accidentally killed a beloved friend; and from that day till the hour of his own death, he hid his face from men." Some critics identify the "friend" as Moody's wife.

Passages in Exodus, Leviticus, and Isaiah in which the veil symbolizes "that which divides men from the kind of knowledge which will come to them in the next world"

Relationships with other Hawthorne stories: Hooper is like Aylmer, Giovanni, and Dimmesdale, men incapable of accepting the love of a woman.

Interpretive Questions:

Is the veil related to the girl whose funeral takes place on the Sunday when he first wears it?

Has Hooper sinned so that he deserves his lifelong isolation, or is he a saint who gives up everything to devote his life to the ministry?

Is Hooper guilty not of some secret sin, but of pride, believing that he is too good to accept even minor failings in himself?

Psychoanalytic Interpretations

Von Abele: Hooper's veil is a "protective device behind which its wearer can hide from the sexual demands of a normal life."

Crie notes a "basic dependency upon, yet fear of, women"

Bibliography

Crie, Robert D. "'The Minister's Black Veil': Mr. Hooper's Symbolic Fig Leaf." Literature and Psychology 17 (1967): 211-217.

Fogle, Richard H. Hawthorne's Fiction: The Light and the Dark. Rev. ed. Norman: Oklahoma UP, 1964.

Von Abele, Rudolph. The Death of the Artist: A Study of Hawthorne's Disintegration. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1955.