The Minister's Black Veil - Analysis

Nathaniel Hawthorne refers to his story The Minister's Black Veil as a parable. A parable is a story that teaches a moral or spiritual lesson, and as most Dark Romanticism period literary pieces do, this story had a deeper meaning than what was on the surface. The parable begins with a preacher walking into his service wearing a black veil. The color black is usually associated with death or mourning, or generally sad and scary things. Black is worn at funerals and mainly associated with death. The fact that the preacher was wearing not just a veil, but a black veil is the authors way of depicting the veil as dark, and even the preacher as a dark character. When they ask him to remove it, he says that he simply cannot remove it. The author does not specifically say why the preacher is wearing the veil, but it is possible that the veil symbolizes more than just a covering of his face. The veil could stand for some sin or shame that the preacher has encountered in the past and cannot let go. Even up until his death at the end of the story, the preacher would not take off the veil. He is even buried in it, taking his "sin" to the grave with him.

It should be said that it was nothing that the preacher did that made the people stray away from him, but simply the black veil that he wore. He did nothing that would scare away people, he only wore a black veil over his face. That theme relates this story back to Dark Romanticism. Human nature caused people to stray away from what could have been a perfectly socially acceptable man, but because he had a stigma, his veil, people were afraid of him. He, in a sense, caused his own demise, but the other characters in the story helped to play an equally important role. They did not understand, so they chose to ignore him.

Abby Werlock discusses many valid points in her literary criticism. She promptly noted that the title of the story concluded that it was a parable, but there are two types of parables. Christian parables are stories that have a moral or spiritual meaning, but Greek parables are simply stories that are told "side by side" to one another (Werlock). She also notes that in the footnote from Hawthorne, he tells that the story "parallels a narrative about Mr. Joseph Moody, another clergyman who covered his face because in his youth, he had accidentally killed a friend, but that this story has "a different import" (Werlock). Which type of parable is it? Both would be clear choices either way, but it is difficult to create an argue to definitively defend one side or the other.

Through out the story, the townspeople are too afraid to ask the preacher why he is wearing the veil, so instead they gossip about the possible reasons. They discuss in private, behind his back, why he would want to wear such a thing and even conclude that it may be to cover up some kind of sin. In the process, however, they themselves create sin gossiping about the preacher. There may not have been a reason at all, and if so, the towns people would have done even more wrong than the preacher wearing the black veil, possibly covering up nothing at all. That is why this story is Dark Romanticism.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Minister's Black Veil." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. .  Print

Wright, Sarah Bird. "'The Minister's Black Veil'." Critical Companion to Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CCNH403&SingleRecord=True (accessed January 23, 2012).

Werlock, Abby H. P. "'The Minister's Black Veil'." The Facts On File Companion to the American Short Story, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CASS581&SingleRecord=True (accessed January 23, 2012).