Journal #31

Michelle Romero
English 48A
Dr. Scott Lankford,
Final #2

Hawthorne:
"He changed himself into something awful only by hiding his face" (1312).

This passage refers to Mr. Hooper's physical change of appearance when he decides to wear a black veil which covers his face.

Hidden secrets play such a strong role in Hawthorne's The Minister's Black Veil because of the way Hawthorne structures the scene. By making everyone around the minister appear to be spic-and-span and in their holy, Sunday clothes, the ambiguity of the meaning of his wearing of the veil makes it seem like that is what stands out, like that is what is weird. It makes it seem like he was the one hiding something. Hawthorne creates a scene of clean, Sunday-best type of people and environment and compares it to the blackness of the veil, such a subtle darkness that causes such a great stir and spurs on the mystery of the black veil among the crowd.

I find this passage ironic also. For example, it says that Mr. Cooper changed himself by putting on the veil, yet underneath Mr. Cooper would have appeared to look the exact same as before. The veil did not produce any physical change of state, it was just an adornment. In addition, I think Hawthorne was making a point about how people oftentimes wear a mask before the public. We disguise our true selves from friends, neighbors, coworkers and so on. And certainly as he has mentioned here, we disguise ourselves by putting forth only our "best" on Sundays to go to church. Therefore, the black veil didn't cover anything but the mask that Mr. Hooper would have already been wearing on all the Sundays past. So, in a way, the black veil actually made him more real but taking away the front or the persona that he has been putting on. It didn't change anything, it only brought attention to something that was already present.

The hidden secret or mystery concerning the black veil is how Hawthorne makes his points. He puts all the focus on the black veil just as the crowd had put, so that the reader is forced to ask themselves also, "What in the world does it mean?" In addition, by keeping the secret a mystery even at the end, he leaves the interpretation up to the reader.