Positive Effects of the Minister's
Veil
Mr. Hooper's sermon after donning the
veil becomes more powerful as it "was tinged, rather more darkly than usual, with the
gentle gloom of Mr. Hooper's temperament."
It causes the
congregation to become uneasy as they examine their own guilty
consciences.
Mr. Hooper becomes an "awful power" over
people in the agony for sin. His converts say that they were previously "behind him"
with the veil.
The dying cry out for him so that they can
confess.
When Mr. Hooper delivers the election sermon, the
legislators pass measure that possess the "gloom and piety" of their
ancestors.
He acquires a fame throughout New England and is
known as Father Hooper.
Father Hooper is considered
"venerable, holy in deed and
thought."
Negative Effects of the Minister's
Veil
The members of Mr. Hooper's
congregation suspect him of trying to hide something, wondering if he seeks to keep "the
dread Being whom he was addressing" from knowing.
Some of
the members of the church leave; "more than one woman of delicate nerves was forced to
leave the meetinghouse."
Each member of the congregation,
even the innocent, feel as though the peacher "had crept upon them,...and discovered
their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought." They feel as if their private thoughts have
been invaded.
Mr. Hooper is not invited to share Sunday
dinner at anyone's home.
Members of the congregation wonder
if there is or is not some mystery.
The congregation begins
to gossip and become suspicious of Mr. Hooper
When Mr.
Hooper greets people, "strange and bewildered looks" repay his
courtesy.
Mr. Hooper is never invited to weddings either as
the minister or as a guest. When he does come to one, the veil is interpreted as having
only the power "to portend nothing but evil to the
wedding."
The veil separates him from the "cheerful
brotherhood and woman's love."
When Mr. Hooper catches his
reflection in a mirror at the wedding, his body shudders and he spills his glass of
wine; he rushes into the darkness.
A sad smile flickers
upon Mr. Hooper's mouth as he passes people.
The veil
"throws its influence over his whole person, and makes him ghostlike from head to
foot."
Superstitions are raised about the minister's
ability to affect even corpse.
No one approaches him to ask
about the veil, or to remonstrate against it as it causes
dread.
The veil becomes a symbol "of a fearful secret
between him and them."
Mr. Hooper loses his fiance,
Elizabeth, because he will not remove the veil.
Rumors
begin that Mr. Hooper's conscience tortured him for some "great crime, too horrible to
be entirely concealed."
Mr. Hooper spends the rest of his
life shrouded in suspicion, and is separated from his fellow
men.
When Mr. Hooper refuses to remove the veil even in
death, the thought of his wearing the veil remains an awful and frightening
one.
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