The Minister's Black Veil Summary & Analysis

In a footnote, Hawthorne explains that Mr. Joseph Moody, who lived in Maine, also wore a veil, though unlike Reverend Hooper, the protagonist of Hawthorne’s story, he did as atonement for accidentally killing one of his friends.

On a bright Sunday in the town of Milford, everyone is walking to church as usual: happy children, flirtatious young men and women and married couples. As the townspeople take their seats, the town sexton notices the Reverend Mr. Hooper walking to church, and cries out, surprised, that he has something on his face.

The townspeople turn and look at Hooper as he approaches the church. Many cannot recognize him, but the sexton insists that it is Hooper. Another parson was meant to preach that Sunday, but he had to attend to a funeral in his own town.

Hooper is a young, unmarried preacher, though he dresses so neatly that it looks as if he has a wife to help him. Yet now he is wearing a veil that hides his entire face, except for his mouth and chin. While the townspeople cannot see Hooper’s face, Hooper can see the townspeople through the material of the veil, though they must look darker to him. He walks among the townspeople and nods at them kindly, but they are too shocked to respond.

The townspeople mutter their disapproval of Hooper’s black veil. The sexton says he doesn’t feel as if Hooper’s face is really behind the veil, and others wonder if Hooper has gone mad. Hooper delivers his sermon, wearing his veil the entire time, almost as if he is trying to hide from God. Several women are so shocked and uncomfortable that they leave.

Hooper is a good preacher, though ordinarily his sermons are mild, not passionate. Today, his sermon, about how humans hide their sins from one another, forgetting that God can see everything, seems unusually dark and powerful. The congregation senses that Hooper knows all of their sins. Even though his voice and gestures are the same, he seems like a stranger; the townspeople cannot tell if it’s because his sermon is darker than usual, or because his appearance is more frightening.

At the end of the sermon, Hooper walks among his congregation. Unusually, no one walks alongside him, and Squire Saunders, who often invites him to dinner, “forgets” to extend an invitation. The townspeople leave the church, eager to discuss Hooper’s veil. Some “profane the Sabbath day” by laughing at it; some maintain that Hooper has weak eyes and needs to restore his sight. The town physician says that Hooper may be losing his mind, and adds that he looks ghostly. His wife says that she would never be alone with him, and wonders why he isn’t afraid to be alone with himself. The physician replies that men sometimes are.

Hooper gives the afternoon service, which includes a funeral service for a young woman. Hooper’s black veil seems appropriate for the occasion. When he bends over the woman’s coffin, his veil hangs down, so that if the woman were alive she would be able to see his face, but he quickly covers himself again. A superstitious old woman notes that the woman’s corpse seems to shudder slightly when Hooper looks at it.

At the funeral, Hooper delivers a moving sermon in which he expresses his certainty that the young woman is in Heaven, and his hope that everyone in the congregation is living a moral life so that they, too, will one day go there. As Hooper walks away from the church, two townspeople agree that he seems to be walking next to the woman’s spirit.

The same evening as the funeral service, a young, popular, beautiful couple is to be married. The town waits eagerly for the ceremony, and hopes also that Hooper, who is known to enjoy weddings, will stop being gloomy. But when Hooper arrives to marry the couple, he is still wearing the veil, casting a mood of seriousness and foreboding over the ceremony.

The wedding is as somber as a famous wedding mentioned by the narrator, in which the groom was about to die. The bride, intimidated by Hooper, looks as pale as the corpse that was buried earlier in the day. As Hooper goes through the marriage services, he catches a glimpse of his own appearance in a mirror, and is so frightened by what he sees that he spills ceremonial wine on the carpet, and runs out of the church into the night—as the narrator puts it, the Earth is also wearing a “black veil.”

The next day, everyone in Milford talks about Hooper’s veil: children, friends, gossips, etc. No one dares to ask Hooper why he is wearing it, even though it’s well know that Hooper is usually open to advice and questioning. Eventually, the town agrees to send a group of people to inquire about the veil. Yet as the group visits and sits with Hooper, they notice that he is smiling sadly, and feel so uneasy that they do not ask him about the veil.

Hooper’s fiancée, Elizabeth, is the only person in Milford who isn’t afraid of Hooper’s veil. She goes to speak with him, and thinks that there is nothing terrifying about his appearance. When Elizabeth asks him to remove the veil and explain why he has been wearing it, Hooper replies that he has enough to be sorry about to merit a black veil. Elizabeth advises Hooper that the town will think that Hooper has committed a “secret sin,” and encourages him to remove it for the sake of his job. Hooper smiles sadly, and says that all humans have secret sins.

As Elizabeth attempts to reason with Hooper, she begins to feel afraid of his veil for the first time. Hooper begs her not to leave him, and asks her to try to understand him, insisting that he will only wear his veil on earth, that in the hereafter they will be united without the veil between them. He adds that he is afraid to be alone. Elizabeth asks him to lift his veil so that she can look at him, but when he refuses, she breaks off the engagement and leaves him forever. Hooper is greatly saddened, but even as he grieves, he smiles sadly, thinking that it was only a veil that separated him from Elizabeth.

After Elizabeth leaves Hooper, no one tries to remove or understand his veil. Some say that Hooper is mad or eccentric, while most people are simply afraid of him. Hooper is pained that the townspeople avoid him, and gives up his customary walks to the graveyard because he is conscious that he frightens others. Hooper comes to hate his own veil, so much so that he avoids looking in the mirror. Rumors say that Hooper wears the veil because he is guilty of a great crime, and even that the wind avoids him so as not to blow the veil off his face. Through the years, Hooper always smiles sadly.

Although it isolates Hooper from Milford, the veil makes him an excellent reverend. Because the townspeople are afraid of Hooper, they focus on religion. Converts to Christianity say that before they discovered faith, they were behind Hooper’s veil, and sinners request Hooper’s presence on their deathbeds. One year, a new governor is elected, and Hooper is asked to deliver a sermon. He makes such an impression that the government’s laws that year are gloomy and severe. Hooper goes through life behaving with irreproachable morals, but even so he is always shrouded in a reputation of having committed some sin. He is always kind and loving, but always vaguely feared. He becomes famous throughout New England, and earns the respectful title of Father Hooper.

Hooper grows old and close to death; the physician says that he can do nothing to save him. Although he has no family, many clergymen come to visit him on his deathbed, including the young Reverend Clark. Elizabeth, who has continued to love Hooper even after leaving him, now takes care of him. Hooper’s mind is confused, but he continues to insist that his veil not be removed. Elizabeth faithfully follows his orders.

Reverend Clark approaches Hooper on his deathbed and requests that he allow his veil to be lifted so that the other clergymen may see the face of a pious man. Hooper insists that the veil never be lifted on earth. Clark asks Hooper what crime he committed that he wore the veil for so long. In reply, Hooper struggles to sit upright in his deathbed, smiles sadly, and asks why the townspeople have avoided him simply because he has worn a veil. Why have they trembled to see him, but not to see each other? With his dying words, he cries that he can only be considered a monster when friends reveal their “inmost hearts” to their friends, when lovers do the same to their beloveds, and when people don’t try in vain to hide their sins from God. He looks around, he says, and sees a black veil on everyone’s face! As the people around him lean back, away from each other, in fright at these words, Hooper dies with a faint smile once again on his lips. Hooper is buried and grass grows over his grave, but the thought remains awful that his face, surely dust, is still covered by the black veil.