SOURCE: "'The Minister's Black Veil': Symbol, Meaning, and the Context of Hawthorne's Art," in Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 24, No. 2, September, 1969, pp. 182-92.

In the essay below, Carnochan discusses the role of the veil both to conceal and to represent concealment.

"The Minister's Black Veil," one of Hawthorne's early tales (1836), has a reputation as one of his best. It has had less attention than, say, "Rappaccini's Daughter" or "My Kinsman, Major Molineux," no doubt because it is in some ways less problematic and is a less bravura piece than are they. Still the story presents its own kind of difficulties, and there is no critical unanimity among its readers. On one view the Reverend Mr. Hooper is a saintly figure, calling his people to repentance in the manner of an old testament prophet;¹ on another view he is a victim of monomaniac obsession, one of Hawthorne's unpardonable sinners or, even...