SOURCE: "The Masterpieces in Twice-Told Tales," in Hawthorne's Early Tales, A Critical Study, Duke University Press, 1972, pp. 159-81.

In the following excerpt, Doubleday argues that "The Minister's Black Veil" is a straightforward allegory of humankind's sinful nature and that critics should accept Hawthorne's ambiguity as purposeful.

Since Hawthorne included "The Minister's Black Veil: A Parable" in the first edition of Twice-Told Tales, he apparently did not think it a difficult tale—rather one that "may be understood and felt by anybody who will give himself the trouble to read it." Yet his critics have by no means agreed about its purport; and although we do not ordinarily think of a parable having multiple meanings, this tale has been read in very different fashions. Since it was first printed in 1835 in The Token for 1836, it seems not to have been one of the pieces for the projected "Story-Teller" volume...