The veil gives everything a dark and a gloomy aspect. The preacher’s first sermon in the veil penetrates his parishioners souls, the gloomy atmosphere is present even at a wedding, as the parson does not decide to remove it on this occasion. The colour of the veil is important and symbolizes death and evil.
With the decision to wear the veil and not remove it he condemned himself to lead a life in solitude and alienation. At his deathbed he says: ”Have men avoided me, and women show no pity, and children screamed and fled, only for my black veil?”. He doesn’t even give up wearing it if he is asked to take it off by his beloved Elisabeth and faces the choice of life without love in the black veil of with Elisabeth but without it. It proofs how important the veil is for Hooper but does not explain the reason for him to wear it which has to be read between the lines.
The reason why parson decided to wear the black veil is revealed in his first sermon in it: “The subject had reference to secret sin, and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest and would fain conceal from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient can detect them”. With Hooper’s decision to wear the veil he confesses the abstract fact that he is sinful. Accepting the philosophy of redemption does not change the fact. But although he is the only one who puts on “two folds of crepe” other people seem to wear it too, the only difference is that their veils are invisible. The people do not show their true faces in their everyday lives but “there is an hour to come (…) when all of us shall cast aside our veils” says Hooper in his words to Elizabeth suggesting our sins will be revealed before omniscient God during the Judgment Day. In this context the role of the veil is to act like a curtain between the parson and eternity.
The task of Hooper’s first sermon in the veil is to encourage the parishioners to confess they are sinful as well. However, although the sermon is successful and: ”each member of the congregation, the most innocent girl, and the man of hardened breast, felt as if the preacher had crept upon them, behind his awful veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought” it does not encounter understanding and approval of the community. The community, in their act to “exclude” the parson, refuses to admit that they are sinful. Hooper’s black veil is a reflection of the iniquity of each inhabitant of the village. Their attitude towards the preacher reveals it is something they are not willing to face. It is important to notice that the people represent orthodox Puritan theology, that officially subscribes to the doctrine of Original Sin. The question then arises what do they find so terrible in admitting that one is secretly sinful? It has probably something to do with the fact that these communities have claimed to be the community of the redeemed. Their attitude towards Rev. Hooper suggests they have taken the premise that to be redeemed is inconsistent with being in sin. The behaviour of Hooper does not match the mentality of that community.
A dislike of the community to admit their sin makes them find themselves in great spiritual peril as Puritan theology is insistent that, without conviction of sin, there can be no salvation. Perhaps one of the tasks Rev. Hooper ventured was to make his parishioners realize that. As I mentioned before when he puts his veil on his sermon has a greater influence on his audience. The parishioners however do not take advantage of what they have learnt during the Hooper’s sermon. Their commitment to social respectability is revealed as more important to them than their appreciation of their eternal welfare. The historical irony that Hawthorne suggests is that the original Puritan communal plan contained within it the potential to produce a society constructed on a thoroughgoing hypocrisy.
Hooper is an outcast of the society and is different from its members as he is the only person aware of the fact that he is sinful and the black veil is a symptom of it. His crucial task as a minister is to bring his congregation into full communion with God however he does not accomplish it. If wearing a black veil was to help him in achieving that, it was totally unsuccessful.
Hooper is also unsuccessful in his attempt to convey an important message to his faithful. This message is revealed in his words in the deathbed "Why do you tremble at me alone? (…) Tremble also at each others (…) I look around me, and lo! on every visage a black veil!". With his words Hooper tries to indicate the fact of concealment in his community and criticize it. However, the parishioners misread the message and speculate there is something wrong with Hooper himself and groundlessly accuse him of committing a sinful deed. The black veil focuses the attention of the villagers on the person of Hooper instead of themselves.
Behind the invisible veils on their faces Hooper’s parishioners hide their true visages. They are barriers and obstacles in communication between people who do not show their true faces when they are together, even if they are two people who love each other (it is important to notice, that the parson does not take the veil off during the wedding nor when he talks to his beloved Elizabeth and she asks him to do so). The veil is everywhere, masks and concealment is everywhere.
