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In a review of 150 years of criticism of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil," Lea Newman proposes that the record "shows a surprisingly diverse collection of reflections" on the tale. 1 At first glance, this assessment seems accurate. Generations of commentators have taken advantage of the tale's ambiguity regarding the precise meaning of Hooper's veil to advance their own critical agendas, with the result that no single interpretation of the veil can be considered definitive. Nonetheless, several recognizable themes recur: the veil as an indication of a secret sin committed by Parson Hooper; as a symbol of his recognition of Calvinistic inner depravity; and as a symbol of how symbols function in literature and ultimately of how all language works. 2
Parson Hooper has come under similar scrutiny. A few observers have praised him for donning the veil as a heroic act of self-sacrifice to embody the universality of hidden sin. The more common reactions among those who choose to offer a judgment of Hooper, however, have been either to castigate him for hypocritically holding himself above the community by symbolizing but not revealing his own sin, or, as with Frederick Crews, to psychoanalyze Hooper as another of Hawthorne's male characters unable to negotiate the demands of adult sexuality. 3 Despite this apparent divergence of opinion on the story, all of these critical approaches take Hooper at his word when he tells Elizabeth that the veil is "a type and a symbol." 4 Their disagreements merely represent competing interpretations of the symbol. Not a single writer explores the possibility that Hooper misleads Elizabeth about the meaning of the veil or that he uses the veil to conceal some tangible, facial disfigurement.
Although critics like Frederick Newberry and Michael J. Colacurcio have called into doubt Hooper's understanding of Puritan theology, suggesting that his intense awareness of innate depravity prevents him from achieving a true understanding of saving grace, they nonetheless unquestioningly credit Hooper's vague assertion that the veil is a type and a symbol. In a similar paradox, critics uphold the people of Milford as Hawthorne's model of a typical human community, yet they offhandedly discount the townspeople's persistent beliefs that some scandalous crime has driven Hooper to don the veil. 5 One explanation for...