Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Minister's Black Veil is a dark romantic short story filled with dark romantic characteristics. There is also a huge psychological aspect to the story.
A young minister to a church decides to wear a black veil one day to church. All the people have no idea what he is doing. They are all scared by the dark and mysterious veil. The minister's fiance asks him why he wears the veil, and he says he cannot tell her. He says to just have patience with him. He says the veil is only a mortal thing, but when he dies he will be able to take it off. -Weird. His fiance becomes very mad at him for this because she cannot understand why he is wearing the veil. She tells him they are done. For the rest of the minister's life, he hides behind his black veil and watches as life goes on. Once he is finally on his death bed, with his ex fiance, Elizabeth, at his side as the nurse, another priest asks if he can take off his veil yet. The minister freaks out and says no. Then he dies. They bury the minister with the veil still on his face.
This short story is really weird. It has a lot of characteristics of dark romanticism though. The black veil, is obviously a characteristic of dark romanticism. It is mysterious, black, and kind of spooky. It is just a symbol, but it makes all the people freak out when they see it. For example:
"Such was the effect of this simple piece of crepe, that more than one woman of delicate nerves was forced to leave the meeting-house. Yet perhaps the pale-faced congregation was almost as fearful a sight to the minister, as his black veil to them" (Hawthorne).
"At the close of the services, the people hurried out with indecorous confusion, eager to communicate their pent-up amazement, and conscious of lighter spirits the moment they lost sight of the black veil. Some gathered in little circles, huddled closely together, with their mouths all whispering in the centre; some went homeward alone, wrapt in silent meditation; some talked loudly, and profaned the Sabbath day with ostentatious laughter. A few shook their sagacious heads, intimating that they could penetrate the mystery; while one or two affirmed that there was no mystery at all, but only that Mr. Hooper's eyes were so weakened by the midnight lamp, as to require a shade. After a brief interval, forth came good Mr. Hooper also, in the rear of his flock. Turning his veiled face from one group to another, he paid due reverence to the hoary heads, saluted the middle aged with kind dignity as their friend and spiritual guide, greeted the young with mingled authority and love, and laid his hands on the little children's heads to bless them. Such was always his custom on the Sabbath day. Strange and bewildered looks repaid him for his courtesy. None, as on former occasions, aspired to the honor of walking by their pastor's side. Old Squire Saunders, doubtless by an accidental lapse of memory, neglected to invite Mr. Hooper to his table, where the good clergyman had been wont to bless the food, almost every Sunday since his settlement. He returned, therefore, to the parsonage, and, at the moment of closing the door, was observed to look back upon the people, all of whom had their eyes fixed upon the minister. A sad smile gleamed faintly from beneath the black veil, and flickered about his mouth, glimmering as he disappeared" (Hawthorne).
These two quotes show the agitation and confusion the parishioners feel when they see the minister's black veil. They have no idea what to think of the veil. They wonder if he is hiding from a terrible sin or from God. The mystery of the veil almost drives them crazy (as seen when the women gets up and leaves in the middle of his sermon). When the parishioners see his black veil they think of some of their darkest thoughts. The veil is some type of psychological thing that drives them mad. Because they have no idea why the minister is wearing it or what it is for, they let their imaginations run wild with crazy ideas as to why the minister wears the veil his whole life.
""Why do you tremble at me alone?" cried he, turning his veiled face round the circle of pale spectators. "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 crape so awful? When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best beloved; when man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived, and die! I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!" (Hawthorne).
Not until the end of the story do we see why the minister wears the veil. As the quote above tells us, the veil symbolizes the lies and sins of everyone. The minister makes an example of himself by physically wearing the veil, but he says he sees a veil on everyone because everyone is guilty of something.
Works Cited
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Minister's Black Veil” In American Literature. Willhelm, Jeffory, comp. McGraw Hill. Columbus, 2009. Print.
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