Journal #11

Michelle Romero
English 48
Dr. Scott Lankford

Author: Nathanial Hawthorne

"'How strange,' said a lady, 'that a simple black veil, such as any woman might wear on her bonnet, should become such a terrible thing on Mr. Hooper's face!' 'Something muse surely be amiss with Mr. Hooper's intellects,' observed her husband, the physician of the village" (1314).

This quote reveals some of the actual conversation which took place between a lady and her husband in regard to their noticing Mr. Hooper's new black veil which he now wore upon his face.

I feel like this quote is full of gender-sensitive comments. For one, the lady acknowledges that this black veil (which by the way, everyone is creeped out by) would look normal on a woman. It is as though whatever "sin" or darkness represented by that black veil is expected of women. After all, before woman's suffrage, and certainly during this time period, women were inferior sinners. I would guess that the Puritans also, believing in the lack of self-control expressed by Eve when she partook of the deadly apple justified this view. However, on Mr. Hooper, this sort of thing was not proper, it was instead quite bothersome. Perhaps it bothered the crowd more because he was so forthright about his black veil (whatever it meant) and the civilized felt that those things should not be talked about, much less put on like an accessory.

The second thing to note is the husband's response to this. After the lady comments on the difference of such a thing being worn by a woman as opposed to being worn by a man, her husband resolves to say that Mr. Hooper must not be intelligent. Hmmm...to me this sounds like Mr. Hooper's choice to wear the black veil, a thing thus described as feminine, means he is inferior in intelligence? Something just doesn't add up. I think it is ever so subtle, but important to see the small implications of this brief commentary. I think that Mr. Hooper is being compared with females and thus being labeled as inferior, at least in intelligence.

On another note, the cross-dressing implication may be saying something about Mr. Hooper's femininity or coming out of the closet. Perhaps by putting on the feminine black veil, he is revealing something about his personality rather than hiding it. Perhaps that is what irritates the crowd so much, that he is so open about this black veil.

While there is something to read in to this passage to make a case for Mr. Hooper's being gay, I am at least certain that it expresses some judgments of the society in which they lived, in regard to gender.