Between the Veil and the EvilNathaniel Hawthorne’s story as critique of the Puritan obsession with Evil
...scriptions of divinity are not so peaceful as they were before, they are not calm and nice anymore, but awful and scary. It seems that even the nature itself doesn’t want to be pleasant anymore, but bad and stormy. Hawthorne’s story begins and continues in similar way. At the beginning of the story we see a picture of beautiful beginning of Sunday, “Children with bright faces, tript merrily beside their parents … in the conscious dignity of their sunday clothes. Spruce bachelors looked sidelong at the pretty maidens, and fancied that the sabbath sunshine made them prettier than on week-days”(p.1253). But suddenly all this nice idyll is ruined by sexton’s cry: “But what has good Parson Hooper got upon his face?”. Like a thunderstorm in the middle of sunny day, appears Mr. Hooper who is wearing a black veil that is “swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his face, so low as to be shaken by his breath”(p.1253). The same way the idyll is ruined in “Personal narrative” by the thunderstorm, it is ruined in “Ministers Black Veil” by the appearance of the minister. In Edward’s narrative even God himself sometimes presented as evil and subjective. Edwards says that God is “choosing whom He would to eternal life and rejecting whom He pleased, leaving them eternally to perish and be everlastingly tormented in hell”(p.442). This passage suggests that everyone has an evil element in their soul, even God is not perfect and some things that he does are evil and immoral. This is a very irregular thing to say about God, which is usually presented as good, pure and moral, but the puritans are so preoccupied with evil, that they even assign evil and amoral qualities to God. The Puritans look for evil and sinful qualities in everyone, and God is not an exception. In similar way the people of the village are looking for evil qualities in Mr. Hooper’s personality. The minister is the one who represents the God to the society and they are probably looking for evil matters in ministers’ character as well as they look for it in God’s character. The black veil gives them a reason to suspect the minister in evil and sinful deeds. Elizabeth, Mr. Hooper’s fiancée understands this matter and uses it to ask the minister to take off his veil: “But what if the world will not believe that it is the type of an innocent sorrow ? … Beloved and respected as you are, there may be whispers, that you hide your face under the consciousness of secret sin . For the sake of your holly office, do away this scandal!”(p.1257). Elizabeth knows that the presence of the veil on minister’s face will give people a reason to suspect him in bad deeds and no one will believe him to be innocent. When a deputation of the church meets Mr. Hooper, the veil scares them, “that piece of cr...