“The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne: This 1836 short story explores themes of secret sin and the nature of humanity. It tells the tale of Reverend Mr. Hooper, who suddenly begins wearing a black veil over his face, causing unease among his congregation. The veil symbolizes the hidden sins that individuals carry, prompting readers to reflect on the nature of guilt and confession.
Hawthorne’s The Minister’s Black Veil was published in 1836, during a time of significant cultural, political, and social change in America.
The full PDF of The Minister’s Black Veil can be found here: https://pdcrodas.webs.ull.es/fundamentos/HawthorneTheMinistersBlackVeil.pdf
“The Minister’s Black Veil” is a short story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It was first published in the 1836 edition of The Token and Atlantic Souvenir,
Hawthorne may have been inspired by a true event. A clergyman named Joseph Moody of York, Maine, nicknamed “Handkerchief Moody”, accidentally killed a friend when he was a young man and wore a black veil from the man’s funeral until his own death.
Wikipedia
It’s an odd story – a preacher shows up to Sunday service wearing a black veil. No explanation. He conducts two services, a funeral, and a wedding, all while wearing the veil. His parishioners are freaked out. His fiancé bails on him.
Excerpts from Hawthorne’s The Minister’s Black Veil
Children, with bright faces, tripped merrily beside their parents, or mimicked a graver gait, in the conscious dignity of their Sunday clothes. Spruce bachelors looked sidelong at the pretty maidens, and fancied that the Sabbath sunshine made them prettier than on week days.
Mr. Hooper, a gentlemanly person, of about thirty, though still a bachelor, was dressed with due clerical neatness, as if a careful wife had starched his band, and brushed the weekly dust from his Sunday’s garb. There was but one thing remarkable in his appearance. Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his face, so low as to be shaken by his breath, Mr. Hooper had on a black veil.
With this gloomy shade before him, good Mr. Hooper walked onward, at a slow and quiet pace, stooping somewhat, and looking on the ground, as is customary with abstracted men, yet nodding kindly to those of his parishioners who still waited on the meeting-house steps.
It is never explained why the good Mr. Hooper is wearing the veil, but there is much speculation. Perhaps he is acknowledging his Jungian shadow, his “secret sin,” and this scares the people around him. Will their “secret sin” be exposed?
It was tinged, rather more darkly than usual, with the gentle gloom of Mr. Hooper’s temperament. The subject had reference to secret sin, and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient can detect them. A subtle power was breathed into his words. Each member of the congregation, the most innocent girl, and the man of hardened breast, felt as if the preacher had crept upon them, behind his awful veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought.
During the funeral service, as Mr. Hooper leans over the corpse, his face is briefly exposed to the recently departed young lady.
The clergyman stepped into the room where the corpse was laid, and bent over the coffin, 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 his face. Could Mr. Hooper be fearful of her glance, that he so hastily caught back the black veil? A person who watched the interview between the dead and living, scrupled not to affirm, that, at the instant when the clergyman’s features were disclosed, the corpse had slightly shuddered, rustling the shroud and muslin cap, though the countenance retained the composure of death. A superstitious old woman was the only witness of this prodigy.
When Mr. Hooper’s faithless fiancé visits, she insists he take off the veil. The reader gets the sense that Mr. Hooper may not fully understand, at a conscious level, why he is compelled to wear the veil.
“Elizabeth, I will,” said he, “so far as my vow may suffer me. Know, then, this veil is a type and a symbol, and I am bound to wear it ever, both in light and darkness, in solitude and before the gaze of multitudes, and as with strangers, so with my familiar friends. No mortal eye will see it withdrawn. This dismal shade must separate me from the world: even you, Elizabeth, can never come behind it!”
“What grievous affliction hath befallen you,” she earnestly inquired, “that you should thus darken your eyes forever?”
“If it be a sign of mourning,” replied Mr. Hooper, “I, perhaps, like most other mortals, have sorrows dark enough to be typified by a black veil.”
Later he pleads with Elizabeth to have patience – eternity will allow them to see each other unveiled.
“Have patience with me, Elizabeth!” cried he, passionately. “Do not desert me, though this veil must be between us here on earth. Be mine, and hereafter there shall be no veil over my face, no darkness between our souls! It is but a mortal veil–it is not for eternity! O! you know not how lonely I am, and how frightened, to be alone behind my black veil. Do not leave me in this miserable obscurity forever!”
