In Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story, The Minister's Black Veil, there is much use of symbolism. In the story, a minister starts wearing a black veil one day and never takes it off. The townspeople are spooked and perturbed by the minister they once liked, even though the veil is just cloth over his face. People are afraid of him and beg him to remove the veil, but the minister is adamant and mysterious about the veil.

I think that the veil symbolizes sin, which is in everybody. Everybody is sinful and has a secret sins, or "mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient can detect them" (Hawthorne). When Mr. Hooper is wearing the veil, he is showing that everybody has secret sin. People are afraid of his veil, even though they should be...