The Ministers Black Veil - Book Report/Review Example

The Minister’s Black Veil Studies of Nathanial Hawthorne have revealed that the was heavily influenced by the Puritan background of his ancestors and his homeland, often writing stories that questioned the fundamental practices of this religion as compared to the underlying beliefs. Perhaps this is why most people tend to read “The Minister’s Black Veil” as an interesting, somewhat puzzling story about the masks everyone wears as a means of hiding secret sin. However, a close examination of Hawthorne’s story reveals a deeper meaning within his symbol of the black veil, a message regarding the power of the symbol itself as a symbol and the importance of considering individual interpretation as a part of this meaning. The Minister’s Black Veil Nathanial Hawthorne wrote from a deep immersion in the Puritan world, having had ancestors that landed on North American soil with a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other, ready to tame the wilderness (Swisher, 1996). His hometown of Salem, Massachusetts was the setting for the most brutal witch trials documented in this country and his education reinforced the beliefs espoused by such trials and the religion that made them possible. These influences figured strongly in his writings, often forming the basis of his tales. This is true whether he was writing short stories or longer novels, whether he was writing of times long past or of a more contemporary period and whether he set his stories in his homeland or moved them all the way across the sea into Italy. The way that Hawthorne used this influence reveals a deep questioning of the validity of the beliefs to which he’d been raised to adhere (Erlich, 1984). Few of his stories offer straight-forward tales that are easily understood on first reading. Some, like his short story “The Minister’s Black Veil”, leave a great deal open for speculation. The meaning of the minister’s black veil has been debated since the story was first printed, but it seems clear that the veil is intended to symbolize something much greater than a quick assessment might imply. The story itself seems simple enough. It opens as the village people are called to the church for a normal Sunday mass and the minister emerges wearing a heavy black veil. The veil permits his mouth and chin to be seen, being just long enough to be touched by his breath, but keeps his eyes constantly shrouded from the rest of the world. The congregation responds to this strange appearance of their minister as he takes his place in the church, delivers his sermon and then attempts to socialize with his congregation following the service. This service is followed very briefly with the minister’s appearance at an afternoon service and a funeral, finishing off the day with a popular wedding, all while still wearing the veil. During all of these activities, the effect of the black veil is explored in a number of different ways as the various people of the town notice its effects on them. The minister, through his actions, seems to provide sad comment on the behavior of his flock. Although his fiancé arrives to try to make sense of the veil, she is able to get no clearer answers from the minister and breaks off the engagement. From here, the story skips forward, illustrating some of the ways in which Mr. Hooper’s veil have changed both himself and his society, finally slowing down again as the minister reaches the end of a long and lonely life. At this point, the minister is again surrounded by those who would understand the reason behind his black veil and he is finally able to make them understand that it is simply a physical symbol of the metaphysical veil all people place between themselves, others and God. Effect the veil has on society The members of the church are immediately affected by the black veil. The sexton admits to those in hearing “I can’t really feel as if good Mr. Hooper’s face was behind that piece of crepe,” indicating the amount of separation they are already feeling against the minister. As soon as the service was over, every member of the congregation streams out of the church, “conscious of lighter spirits the moment they lost sight of the black veil” (Hawthorne). Although some seemed to feel they might be capable of understanding the meaning behind the minister’s appearance, none were fully capable of making the connection between the veil and the minister’s sermon regarding what it might mean to themselves. Despite their inability to recognize the message intellectually, the congregation obviously understands the minister’s message on an emotional level. This is made evident as each person in the church reacts as if the minister had stripped away any persona they wore in public and are described as using their hands to attempt to hide their hearts. The different ways in which the veil affects the townspeople can be understood better by comparing the funeral and the wedding scenes. When Mr. Hooper appears at the funeral, the townspeople take comfort in his appearance as well as become somewhat disturbed in imagining the minister taking up more than normal interaction with the dead girl. While he seems to enjoy a much closer spiritual connection with the dead girl as well as the funerary audience, his appearance later at the wedding still in his veil casts a pall over this normally happy affair even though the minister hasn’t changed his behavior at all. “Such was its immediate effect on the guests that a cloud seemed to have rolled duskily from beneath the black crepe, and dimmed the light of the candles. The bridal pair stood up before the minister. But 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” (Hawthorne). Rather than the minister changing his behavior, it can be seen that the townspeople radically alter their previous attitudes based only on the presence of the veil. The minister is no longer seen as the beneficiary of the community but has become a creature that inspires fright, awe and dread. As it affects the community at large, causing them to quickly and completely withdraw from the minister’s company unless facing dire straits of their own, Samuel Coale indicates that the veil is “a demonic object whose effects on the townspeople are such that its very presence vindicates Hooper’s behavior” (81). This withdrawal is made clear as the community becomes fearful of the man. Although “he had never lacked advisers, nor shown himself adverse to be guided by their judgment,” no one in the town is able to pluck up enough courage to question the minister about the veil and what it might mean. The deputation sent to question him proves entirely incapable of carrying out their duty, completely silenced by the presence of the veil. Effect the veil has on the individual Just as the congregation begins to respond to the effects of the black veil as a group, they begin to feel affected on a personal level as well, unintentionally but universally rejecting the minister. One woman insists with the additional of the veil, Mr. Hooper “has changed himself into something awful, only by hiding his face” (Hawthorne). This woman hits the key of the issue as the community begins turning away from the minister simply by virtue of the black veil that hides his eyes. Even as early as his first appearance before his congregation, the veil has already demonstrated its strong effect on Mr. Hooper and his acceptance by his society. This is made clear as Hawthorne takes care to mention how several of the fainter hearted women found it necessary to leave the church early because they couldn’t face the faceless minister anymore and how the rest of the congregation is pale faced and uncertain, indicating the various ways in which the minister is already being separated out of his society only by virtue of the presence of the veil. Although it was customary for Mr. Hooper to mix among his congregation in this way after church, “strange and bewildered looks repaid him for his courtesy” (Hawthorne), demonstrating the rapidity and depth with which the minister was excluded from his society as a result of the veil. As the individual looks upon this veil and realizes that he will have to determine for himself what it is supposed to mean, the veil takes on terrifying connotations. “The veil has no detachable or intrinsic significance. The meanings it carries and the impact it generates … are dependent on the user, on the context, and on the inferred intentions of its use. It is when the minister rejects the invitation to removal and literal rendering … that she becomes aware of these forces and feels the shuddering impact of the symbol” (Freedman 356). Finding oneself suddenly faced with the truth of meaning, that it is always subjective and at least partially due to individual interpretation, is a terrifying concept to all who understand what they are seeing. However, this is not to say that the minister does not suffer any ill-effects of having elected to ‘take the veil’ so to speak. By hiding his face away from his congregation and even his fiancé, he loses all possibility of maintaining or developing a close relationship with anyone. His fiancé, unable to cope with the fear the mask instills in her, calls off the wedding. Mr. Hooper “could not walk the street with any peace of mind, so conscious was he that the gentle and timid would turn aside to avoid him, and that others would make it a point of hardihood to throw themselves in his way … 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” (Hawthorne). The minister’s enforced isolation by the rest of his community, in spite of the fact that he is still the same minister, forces upon him a greater introspective as well as creates for him a more reputable authority as others come from far away to hear him. This isolation and loneliness on the part of the minister, as well as his refusal to explain himself is a symbol, according to Davis, of Hawthorne’s ethics as an author revealing the importance of keeping a certain distance between himself as storyteller and the portion of the story to be revealed to the reader, “the distance that does not allow for totalizing concepts which reduce the infinite alterity of others to his own limited concepts” (Davis 14). By forcing others to think about why a person would willingly opt to participate in this kind of isolation yet not providing an immediate and ready explanation, Hawthorne indicates the degree to which introspection plays a part in the individual’s understanding. Clues that the veil symbolizes something larger Hawthorne attempts to clue his audience in to the subtler elements of his story through various means. One of the earliest clues of the true meaning of the veil is provided as Mr. Hooper appears in front of his congregation at the beginning of the story. “[The veil] threw its obscurity between him and the holy page, as he read the Scriptures; and while he prayed, the veil lay heavily on his uplifted countenance” (Hawthorne). The author has already mentioned that the minister prefers to lead his congregation by example and soft, persistent persuasion rather than through force or fire. Thus, another clue regarding the true meaning of the veil is revealed as Hawthorne indicates the topic of the sermon the morning the minister’s veil first appeared. “The subject had reference to secret sin, and those sad 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). This impression of the black veil as a physical symbol of the townspeople’s metaphysical tendency to hide themselves behind the mask of a persona is brought even more to the front as the minister speaks his dying words. “Tremble also at each other! 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? … I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!” (Hawthorne). However, the meaning of the veil seems to go even deeper than the sense of a ‘hidden’ self simply because of the length of time it took for the minister to reveal his thoughts. Hawthorne’s early hint that the meaning of his story might be something quite subtle is easy to forget or ignore, but is essential to gaining a deep understanding of the story. Freedman suggests that the meaning of the story is actually focused upon the meaning of the symbol itself. “The important truth of the veil is not the universality of concealed sin, for that revelation is too long postponed to be of consequence to most of its observers. The veil speaks far more eloquently of what Carlyle calls ‘the incalculable influences of concealment’ that account for ‘the wondrous agency of symbols’” (Carlyle 220 cited in Freedman 357). The ‘faint smile’ that still lingers on the lips of the dead minister indicates a secret still not told, a meaning that lies beyond the meaning of secret sin that Mr. Hooper railed against at his end. “What has made this piece of crepe so aw[e]ful is precisely ‘the mystery’ it obscurely typifies. The veil, in other words, typifies not a mystery to be disclosed, but mystery itself, and it does so by typifying obscurely, in a way that perpetually tempts and frustrates the assignation of all meaning beyond itself” (Freedman 358). Hawthorne’s purpose is to illustrate the power of the symbol itself as being hidden in the various potential meanings carried within the interpretation of the symbol. Conclusion A close reading of Hawthorne’s short story, coupled with careful attention to the hints the author provides, thus reveals a much deeper understanding of the story as symbolic of the importance and meaning of symbols as symbols. It is not just about a black veil and the way in which it serves to symbolize the hidden faces everyone keeps from the general public. It is not even just about the way in which people tend to hide from their closest loved ones, themselves or attempt to hide from God. While all of these implications are certainly in evidence, as the veil is seen to affect the townspeople as a group, individually and the minister personally, there are also numerous hints throughout the text that suggest a further meaning. For example, while the minister’s veil is seen as disturbing and bothersome within the church service and while performing a wedding ceremony, it is found to be comforting during the funeral ceremony and for those experiencing hard times. This suggests the importance of individual interpretation of the veil as an informing element regarding the meaning of the crepe. This can be traced as well through the various ways individual members of the community accept or reject the veil and as it begins to affect the minister himself. As his perceptions become altered by the way in which he is treated by others, so is he able to gain a clearer perception of the meaning of the veil he took up to make a much simpler point so many years ago. In the end, Hawthorne illustrates that the meaning of the symbol is not a single meaning translating to all universally, but is a multiply-layered idea that can only be discovered through the interaction of the individual, the creator and the message itself. Works Cited Coale, Samuel. “Hawthorne’s Black Veil: From Image to Icon.” Critic. Vol. 55, N. 3, (1993): 79-87. Davis, Clark. “Facing the Veil: Hawthorne, Hooper, and Ethics.” Arizona Quarterly. Vol. 55, N. 4, (1999): 1-19. Erlich, Gloria C. “The Divided Artist and His Uncles.” Family Themes and Hawthorne’s Fiction: The Tenacious Web. Rutgers University Press. Reprinted in Swisher, Clarice. Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Freedman, William. “The Artist’s Symbol and Hawthorne’s Veil: ‘The Minister’s Black Veil’ Resartus.” Studies in Short Fiction. Vol. 29, N. 3, (Summer 1992): 353-363. Hawthorne, Nathanial. “The Minister’s Black Veil.” Twice-Told Tales. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1866. Swisher, Clarice. Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Outline Introduction Thesis statement: The meaning of the minister’s black veil has been debated since the story was first printed, but it seems clear that the veil is intended to symbolize something much greater than a quick assessment might imply. Story summary Effect on community Wedding and the funeral Withdrawal from the minister Effect on the individual The townspeople The minister Clues of something larger Veil as physical symbol of metaphysical action on everyone’s part Veil as a symbol of the power of symbols Conclusion Read More