"The Minister's Black Veil" and "The Crucible"

   "The Minister's Black Veil" begins with the sexton ring the bell. He is anxiously waiting for the arrival of Reverend Hooper because the sexton is supposed to stop ringing the bell at first sight of the reverend. Upon the reverend's arrival, the sexton notices the black veil that shrouds the reverend's face. All of his features are covered and the only things that can be seen through the slight transparency of the veil are Reverend Hoover's mouth and chin. Most of the towns people are frightened by the reverend's new fashion statement. Many ask him to remove the veil or reveal the secret behind it; the reverend refuses. While Reverend Hooper alters no other aspect of his everyday routine, all of the townspeople isolate him and avoid him.
  The reverend's "plighted wife" (which in itself is an irony: one meaning of plighted means 'unfortunate or especially bad situation' (foreshadowing to the demise of the relationship?) while another meaning is 'to become engaged or to marry') is determined to find out the veil's purpose/concealment. "She set her eyes steadfastly upon the veil..." (could the use of the word 'steadfastly' be in reference to steadfast love of lovers, Jesus' steadfast Love?). However, the minister will not reveal the veil's purpose to even his most beloved. He explains to her there is a time and place that everyone will reveal there veils. "'There is an hour to come,' said he, 'when all of us shall cast aside our veils. Take it not amiss, beloved friend, if I wear the piece of crape till then.'" Elizabeth, his fiance, the gives him an ultimatum: he can choose her and reveal the veil's purpose, or he can keep his secret veil's purpose hidden and lose her. She offers him one more chance to show his face but he still refuses. Elizabeth is brought to tears (sign of love) and becomes fully aware of his veil and then leaves him.
   After Elizabeth leaves him, he is truly lonely. He is stared at on his evening walks and he is increasingly aware of people avoiding him and treating him differently and eventually quits his daily walks. He is so conscious of his veil he even chooses to not look at himself. On a good note, his veil makes him a better minister: "he became a man of awful power over souls that were in agony for sin. His converts always regarded him with a dread peculiar to themselves, affirming, though but figuratively, that, before he brought them to celestial light, that had been with him behind the black veil." Eventually he was made Father.
   Father Hooper never took his veil off, and he was buried in his veil. On his deathbed Elizabeth came to comfort him and held his hand. In one last beckoning she, along with others, try to convince him to reveal his face before he dies. He has a form of a meltdown and grasps his veil when another clergymen tries to remove the veil. Everyone in the room is terrified (trembling). "'Why do you tremble at me alone?' cried he, turning his veiled face round the circle of pale spectators. Tremble also at each other! Have mean avoided me... only for my black veil? What, but the mystery wit it obscurely typifies, has made this piece of crape so awful?... I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil!'" As one can imagine, everyone in the room is shaken. Father Hooper died and was put into his grave veiled.




  While there are several common themes throughout "The Minister's Black Veil" and The Crucible, I will only discuss a few. One theme is both Hawthorne and Miller were highly critical of Puritanical reasoning and punishment. In both stories, the Puritans are completely caught up in sins and the fear of sinning that they lose sight of reality. While the townspeople of Salem Village listen to girls who believe they are a medium between the Devil and the real world, the townspeople in Hawthorne's short story are completely afraid of the ministers veil. His black veil represents a secret sin (or just sin in general) and is a visual symbol of sin. The townspeople are afraid of it because they are simply afraid of their own secret sins. While in "The Minister's Black Veil", the secret sin is not specifically identified, The Crucible's secret sin is the affair of John Proctor and Abigail Williams. 
     Another common thread of the two are (I'm paraphrasing) 'dying with dignity'. John Proctor in The Crucible doesn't want to hang in risk of tainting the good of those who are being hung that really are good. In the end he finds the good in himself and decides to take the hanging because he is "good" enough to die alongside of the other good people to be hung. In "The Minister's Black Veil", the minister stands true to his decision to not reveal the mystery of his veil. Even on his deathbed the veil's purpose is not revealed to the townspeople and even the ones closest to Father Hoover. 
    The last theme I am going to discuss openly admitted guilt vs. hidden guilt. In "The Minister's Black Veil", the minister is representing openly admitted guilt because he wears a black veil to symbolize his sin; the veil separates him for all the he loves and the world. The hidden sin is represented by the townspeople who fear the black veil. In The Crucible, the hidden sin is obviously the affair between John Proctor and Abigail. However, towards the end of the play, Proctor comes clean about the affair with himself, with his wife (she already knows but the two discuss the affair verbally) and even with his town and before the court. Abigail still hides her sin.