SOURCE: “The Semiotic Significance of ‘The Minister's Black Veil,’” in Semiotica, Vol. 113, No. 3-4, 1997, pp. 337-46.

In the following essay, Danow analyzes the “minimalist” world of “The Minister's Black Veil” and the spatial relationships created by the veil symbol.

The Russian semiotician and literary theorist, Jurij Lotman, points out that the spatial order of the world in certain texts ‘becomes an organizing element around which its non-spatial features are also constructed’ (1977: 220). In other words, while time and space are inextricably bound in life and art, the spatial aspect may on occasion appear dominant as the principal organizational or structural element of the artistic work. Despite E. M. Forster's astute remark that time is ‘far more fatal than place’ (1927: 29), Lotman's view bears investigation.

The Russian theorist argues that ‘the structure of the space of a text becomes a model of the structure of the space of the universe …’ (1977: 217). If...