FREE ESSAY ON THE MINISTER'S BLACK VEIL VERSES GOODMAN BROWN

THE MINISTER'S BLACK VEIL VERSES GOODMAN BROWN

The Veil of the Minister and Goodman Brown
Nathaniel Hawthorne's short stories "The Minister's Black Veil" and "Young Goodman Brown"
are two stories that are thick with allegory. "Young Goodman Brown" is a moral story
which is told through the perversion of a common townsperson. In "Young Goodman Brown,"
Goodman Brown is a Puritan who lets his excessive pride in himself interfere with his
relations with the community after he meets with the devil and causes him to live the
life of an exile in his own community. "The Minister's Black Veil" is also a moral story
that is told through the perversion of a Puritan religious leader. In "The Minister's
Black Veil," Parson Hooper is abashed of his own sin and attempts to disguise his sin
with a black veil. In an ironic way, Parson Hooper and Goodman Brown are both wearing a
veil of guilt to cover up their own sins. This veil later becomes the main symbol of
guilt, excessive pride, and hidden sins.
What exactly is guilt? Guilt is remorseful awareness of having done something wrong.
Goodman Brown and Parson Hooper are two men that are guilty of some type of wrong
behavior. Their guilt arrives from an act of sin. "Young Goodman Brown" begins when
Faith, Brown's wife, asks him not to go out on an errand to meet the devil. This errand
later becomes the center of his guilt. Goodman Brown's guilt is carried around with him
like an invisible veil that will never uncover him. In the same way, Parson Hooper has a
veil that covers part of his face to hide his face from his congregation because of how
guilty he feels. When Goodman Brown finally meets with the devil, he declares that the
reason he is late is because "Faith kept me back awhile" (Hawthorne 1237). This statement
has a double meaning because his wife physically prevents him from being on time for his
meeting with the devil, the wrongdoing that causes Goodman Brown's whole sense of guilt.
When Goodman Brown comes back to the town, he projects his guilt onto those around him.
His pride "...rises within him to cast a shadow over the apparent realities of life in
Salem that he once took as visible evidence of sanctity" (Martin 84). Goodman Brown feels
he can push his own faults onto others and look down at them rather than look at himself
and resolve his own faults with himself. The rest of his life is destroyed because of his
inability to face this truth and live with it. In "The Minister's Black Veil," Hooper
commits a sin and is ashamed by it so he covers his face to hide from the sin. He also
does this to prove that no one is perfect and that everyone makes mistakes. On critic
states that "Hooper is more closely related to those who withdrew actively as a result of
a misguiding religious zeal" (Newman 200). This may be the result of how Hooper allows
himself to commit a sin that he is forever guilty of. These two men are alike in that
both of their feelings of guilt arrives from a sin that neither is aware that they
committed. This sin is an allegory of the veil; the veil that will forever cover Goodman
Brown and Parson Hooper.
Goodman Brown and Parson Hooper both show great examples of excessive pride in the way
that they carry themselves and their sins. When Goodman Brown is venturing into the woods
to meet with the devil, he leaves his unquestionable faith in God with his wife. This is
an example of the excessive pride because of this promise that he made to himself. There
is a tremendous irony to this promise because when Goodman Brown came back at dawn, he
can no longer look at his wife with the same faith. Goodman Brown's invisible veil is now
pulled over his eyes in a way in which he can not see that he too has sinned and that it
is not just the townspeople and his wife who are sinning. In "The Minister's Black Veil,"
Parson Hooper does not seem to illustrate that much pride, but other critics seem to
disagree. As one critic states, "Others have judged Hooper guilty of a different kind of
sin: excessive pride" (Newman 205). His pride is illustrated through him never stating
why he wore the veil. The black veil is just constructed as an allegory that would
compare sin concocted by imagination with unrecognized sin of oneself. The veil is
ironically placed over Hooper's face to make the people of the congregation realize that
no one is perfect and that everyone sins. Hooper constantly refuses to remove the veil.
His veil disrupts numerous occasions just by the aura that it lets off. For example, "It
caused children to flee when he approached because he would not remove the veil even for
one moment" (Martin 75). Although "Hooper's self-deceptive insistence on wearing the veil
is an ironic dramatization of his own inability to see his sin of pride even as he seeks
to reveal the hidden sins of others" (Newman 205). This demonstrates how much pride in
the veil Hooper held. One can conclude that he has so much pride in this veil because he
wants to be a more powerful and forceful minister who also wants his congregation to
realize that they were not the only ones that commit sins. 
Sin is an issue that every human being has to deal with at one time or another in his or
her lifetime. Some people try to hide their sins, some try to push them aside, and some
try to deal with their sins in a more conventional way. The largest place for confessing
sin in the world is the confessional booth at a church. People go to tell their sins and
feel cleansed afterwards. But what happens when a man who hears confessions day after day
sins himself. There is no confession booth for the man to go to. He must deal with his
sin in his own way, a way that will leave him feeling cleansed. Mr. Hooper, the minister
in "The Minister's Black Veil," and Goodman Brown, both are this type of man who if he
commits a sin there is no one they can tell. Throughout Hawthorne's short stories, "Young
Goodman Brown" and "The Minister's Black Veil," the veil symbolizes numerous hidden
secrets that Parson Hooper and Goodman Brown have been hiding. In "Young Goodman Brown,"
a black mass of clouds comes in between Goodman Brown and the sky as if to block his
prayer from heaven. This mass of clouds can also be interpreted as a veil that has come
in between God and Goodman Brown. God is now isolating him from the good Christians by
shutting him out of heaven. Lea Newman quotes that "The veil is sometimes viewed as
something that will shade him from the sunshine of eternity" (205). Newman also quotes
that this invisible veil over Goodman hides his sin from God. God knowing all does not
allow Goodman Brown to proceed into heaven. The sin that Goodman Brown commits is the sin
of worshipping the devil, and because of him doing this, he becomes marked for life with
a veil that marks him with a hidden sin. In "The Minister's Black Veil," on the surface,
the first sight of the veil not only confuses the congregation but scares them as well.
To put it differently, "This irony is compounded that Hooper's sin is a hidden
one--hidden not only from his fellows but also from himself" (Stibitz 157). Without even
the slightest bit of investigation into the issue, these people have brewed in their
imaginations all sorts of theories as to what is so wrong with the minister. The true
allegory arises from these beliefs of the community but does not wholly manifest itself
until the minister sees it from his point of view. Though he may contend that the veil
personifies sorrows dark enough to be typified by the black veil, it is possible to infer
that the veil is actually somewhat of an experiment by the minister. Terence Martin
quotes that "Mr. Hooper donned the black veil, the matter is not relevant to the
narrative but, to know why he put it on would have to be a different story. For the focus
of the tale is on the veil, not on the minister's motives" (72). By donning the black
veil, the minister realizes his fear that the people of his community are more obsessed
with a sin which they believe is the reason he wears the veil. The community is sure the
minister is hiding from his own sins, more than he is from theirs. 
As a result of guilt, excessive pride, and hidden sins, one can assume that without
acknowledging this sin, it will remain with a person forever. Through Hawthorne's use of
the veil as an allegory of sin Goodman Brown and Parson Hooper have learned that by
committing a sin meant they had to live with it for the rest of their lives. Goodman
Brown was supposed to learn that everyone is human and should be treated with compassion.
Instead he learned that everyone is a sinner and forever treats people with abhorrence.
Enlightenment can impart great wisdom but only those minds which are open to receiving
it. In "The Minister Black Veil" and in "Young Goodman Brown," ironically both of the
men's behavior led them to lead a life in isolation and depression. Also their lives both
ends sadly with neither one ever removing the veils that covered their sins.
Bibliography
Martin, Terence. Nathaniel Hawthorne. Boston: Twayne Publishers. 1983.
Newman, Lea Bertani Vozar. A Reader's Guide to Short Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1979.
Stibitz, E. Earle. "Ironic Unity in Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil." Critical
Essays on Hawthorne's Short Stories. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co., 1991. 157-63