Hangin' with Mr. Hooper

OR: "hanging down over his face, so low as to be shaken by his breath, Mr. Hooper had on a black veil" (Hawthorne, 1253)

Picking out instances of Dark Romanticism in Hawthorne is like playing Nintendo with a Game Genie: it's really, really easy but strangely satisfying. The Minister's Black Veil is highly entertaining for a story wherein not much happens, and I think we can owe that up to all the layers of fantastic gloominess and symbolism Hawthorne gives us. What I especially appreciate are the not-so-subtle hints Hawthorne gives his readers to let us know that the veil not only has an effect on how people see the minister, but also how he sees everyone else.

From the beginning of the story we understand that the black veil not only darkens Mr. Hooper's face, but also everything he sees: "two folds of crape [...] did not intercept his sight, farther than to give a darkened aspect to all living and inanimate things" (Hawthorne 1253). I find this aspect of the veil, which is easily overlooked, to play a very important role in the story. In separating the minister from society, the veil seems to give Mr. Hooper some level of objectivity when observing people. While the Romanticists understand this theme, Hawthorne's twist is to make the veil black, and therefore darken everything. This is Hawthorne's way of saying that the true nature is mankind is much more sinister than the Romanticists and Transcendentalists would lead you to believe. Mr. Hooper doesn't wear the veil because he is eccentric or reclusive, but because the veil seems to reveal people's true nature, "as if the preacher had crept upon them, behind his awful veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought" (1254). The veil has a two-fold purpose, not simply the effect of shadowing Hooper's face.

Thus, the minister refuses to remove his veil because the veil allows him to see the true nature of the people in his community. He will not remove it unless everyone acts truthfully, removing their own veils. He states as much in his final speech before his own death:

"Tremble also at each other! [...] What, but the mystery which it obscurely typifies, has made this piece of crape so awful? When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best-beloved; when man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived, and die! I look around me and lo! every visage a black veil!" (1261).

It appears as if, through his black veil, Mr. Hooper has unlocked some sort of key to seeing through the facade of others. This is why people fear his sermons, why children run from him, and why he can ruin a perfectly good wedding just by showing up. Mr. Hooper is enlightened; Emerson's consummate "Man Thinking" - but this alienates him from the rest of mankind.

Works Cited:

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Minister's Black Veil." The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Fifth Edition, Volume 1. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1998. 1252-61. Print.