Discussion: "The Minister's Black Veil" (1837)

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Reading Guide

Vocabulary:  vagary, parable, venerable, pathos, emblem, sagacious, prodigy, remonstrance, type, torpor

  1. Who is the narrator?
  2. 'Minister's name? Fiancé's name?
  3. Describe how the Sunday Service is transformed on that fateful Sunday morning when Reverend Hooper began wearing the black veil?
  4. What was the subject of his sermon that morning?
  5. Why do the townspeople never force Reverend Hooper to explain his reason for donning the veil?
  6. What did the superstitious woman swore happened at the afternoon service when Rev. Hooper leaned over the coffin to bid farewell to the deceased young lady? (Why does that funeral not take place in the church?)
  7. What effect did the veil have on the wedding ceremony?
  8. When Mr. Hooper saw himself in the mirror, while toasting at the wedding feast, how did the veil effect him?
  9. What was Elizabeth's relationship to Hooper? What eventually happens to her?
  10.  How effective was Reverend Hooper's ministry during his long life?
  11. On his deathbed, what did Hooper say was the real reason why children ran from him and people shrank from him?
Paragraph:  What was Parson Hooper's motivation for his terrible vow?

Symbol as a Literary Device:

  • Let's look more closely at the scene in which Elizabeth attempts to persuade Reverend Hooper to explain the reasons why he has chosen to wear the veil.
  • What suddenly terrifies Elizabeth?
  • How did she accomplish this unspoken understanding?
  • Does Hawthorne ever reveal to you the meaning of the veil?
  • What hints does he use?
  • Read aloud the extraordinary final scene in the death chamber.
  • What makes this symbol so effective?
  • Read Blake's "The Sick Rose"

Evoking the Supernatural:

  • How does Hawthorne evoke the supernatural throughout this tale?
  • Does he believe in ghosts?
  • How does evoking the supernatural serve the writer's interest in human psychology?
  • Read Wordsworth's "We Are Seven"

Good Quotes:

the narrator: "a sober-minded man like myself"

"'But what has good Parson Hooper got upon his face?' cried the sexton in astonishment."

Mr. Hooper's gentlemanly person: in the pulpit:  face to face with his congregation, except for the black veil...

the sermon's effect:

 "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. Many spread their clasped hands on their bosoms. There was nothing terrible in what Mr. Hooper said, at least no violence; and yet, with every tremor of his melancholy voice, the hearers quaked. An unsought pathos came hand in hand with awe."

After greeting his parishioners, and not being invited to luncheon by Old Squire Saunders, Parson Hooper glances back as he re-enters the parish:

"A sad smile gleamed faintly from beneath the black veil, and flickered about his mouth, glimmering as he disappeared. "How strange," said a lady, "that a simple black veil, such as any woman might wear on her bonnet, should become such a terrible thing on Mr. Hooper's face.":"

the bell tolled for the funeral of a young lady:

Hooper visits the family's home afterwards to pay his respects and as he leans in to look at the face of the woman, a superstitious old woman swore "the corpse had slightly shuddered, rustling the shroud and muslin cap..."

"The people trembled, though they but darkly understood him when he prayed that they, and himself, and all of mortal race, might be ready, as he trusted this young maiden had been, for the dreadful hour that should snatch the veil from their faces..."

Officiating at the wedding:

the bride's cold fingers quivered in the tremulous hand of the bridegroom, and her deathlike paleness caused a whisper that the maiden who had been buried a few hours before was come from her grave to be married

the toast: 

"After performing the ceremony, Mr. Hooper raised a glass of wine to his lips, wishing happiness to the new-married couple in a strain of mild pleasantry that ought to have brightened the features of the guests, like a cheerful gleam from the hearth. 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. His frame shuddered his lips grew white, he spilt the untasted wine upon the carpet, and rushed forth into the darkness. For the Earth, too, had on her Black Veil."

the rumors and gossip:

"One imitative little imp covered his face with an old black handkerchief, thereby so affrighting his playmates that the panic seized himself, and he well-nigh lost his wits by his own waggery."

It was remarkable that of all the busybodies and impertinent people in the parish, not one ventured to put the plain question to Mr. Hooper, wherefore he did this thing....There was a feeling of dread, neither plainly confessed nor carefully concealed, which caused each to shift the responsibility upon another....

the townpeople's embassy to Rev. Hooper:

"they sat a considerable time, speechless, confused, and shrinking uneasily from Mr. Hooper's eye, which they felt to be fixed upon them with an invisible glance."

Elizabeth: his plighted wife:

"Come, good sir, let the sun shine from behind the cloud. First lay aside your black veil; then tell me why you put it on."

His answer:

"There is an hour to come," said he, "when all of us shall cast aside our veils. Take it not amiss, beloved friend, if I wear this piece of crepe till then."

"Your words are a mystery, too," returned the young lady. "Take away the veil from them, at least."

"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!"

......................................................

"If I hide my face for sorrow, there is cause enough;" he merely replied; "and if I cover it for secret sin, what mortal might not do the same?"

Her terror:

But, in an instant, as it were, a new feeling took the place of sorrow; her eyes were fixed insensibly on the black veil, when, like a sudden twilight in the air, its terrors fell around her. She arose, and stood trembling before him.

the children flee his precense:

It grieved him, to the very depth of his kind heart, to observe how the children fled from his approach, breaking up their merriest sports, while his melancholy figure was yet afar off. Their instinctive dread caused him to feel more strongly than aught else that a preternatural horror was interwoven with the threads of the black crape.

the whispers:

the whispers, that Mr. Hooper's conscience tortured him for some great crime too horrible to be entirely concealed, or otherwise than so obscurely intimated. Thus, from beneath the black veil, there rolled a cloud into the sunshine, an ambiguity of sin or sorrow, which enveloped the poor minister, so that love or sympathy could never reach him.

the effectiveness of his ministry:

Dying sinners cried aloud for Mr. Hooper, and would not yield their breath till he appeared; though ever, as he stooped to whisper consolation, they shuddered at the veiled face so near their own. Such were the terrors of the black veil, even when Death had bared his visage!

Father Hooper's death:

Who, but Elizabeth to comfort him in his death throes.

"Why do you tremble at me alone?" cried he, turning his veiled face round the circle of pale spectators. "Tremble also at each others. Have men avoided me, and women shown no pity, and children screamed and fled, only for my black veil? What, but the mystery which it obscurely typifies, has made this piece of crepe 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! on every visage a Black Veil.

The grass of many years has sprung up and withered on that grave, the burial stone is moss-grown, and good Mr. Hooper's face is dust; but awful is still the thought that it moldered beneath the Black Veil!