American Literature: Romanticism Student Midterm Submissions 2016 (midterm assignment) 2. Short Essay 2a. Highlight and analyze a passage from our course readings

Stephen Defferari 

Analysis of Perspective and the Uncanny in Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil”

          Section 14 of Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil” is a fundamental passage for understanding how the Mr. Hooper’s black veil conditions both characteral perspective and the concept of the uncanny within the context of puritanism. That the parishioners “longed for a breath of wind to blow aside the veil” draws attention the dread and unfamiliarity with which the veil lends to Mr. Hooper (Hawthorne 14). In Freudian terms, the desired familiarity of the parson, apart from the veil, has to do with the fact that the veil has become a symbol which has “taken over the full functions of the thing it symbolizes” (Freud 946). The veil, typically a garment worn during a funerary procession and service, and invariably associated with death and sorrow, has projected onto the parson these primary symbolic functions. These associated functions affect the perspectives of the parishioners, insofar as the content of his sermon, with its “reference to secret sin,” represents in Freudian terms of the uncanny something “that ought to have remained secret and hidden but has come to light” (934).

          The veil becomes an object of dread for the parishioners for the reason of the “fateful and inescapable” aspect of death which is included in its symbolic context (942). In puritanism, the theological concept of original sin means that everyone who is born becomes intrinsically sinful, and salvation is neither guaranteed nor necessarily contingent upon works performed. Therefore, “secret sin” can be thought of as furniture, and original sin can be thought of as the rug upon which the furniture of “secret sin” resides. God’s omniscience precludes the concealment of any type of sin, including original sin, and so it is futile to attempt to “hide from our nearest and dearest” sinful deeds (Hawthorne 14). Original sin also corresponds with mortality because the latter is a consequence of Adam and Eve’s Edenic transgression, and therefore mortality and sinfulness are inextricably bonded. That the parishioners should feel as thought “the preacher had crept upon them” draws attention to death as an effect of the uncanny which “ought to have remained secret…but has come to light,” and the portentous confirmation of their future deaths (14).

          The mortality of the body itself is not enough of a conspicuous and omnipresent indice of original sin, and so the person’s veil functions as a perpetual reminder of this theological state. That the parishioners would “fain conceal from [their] own consciousness” the influence of original sin highlights the desire or need to keep it hidden. Within the context of puritanism, original sin a fundamental theological condition, yet it is one that they would rather not have to confront in the form of the symbolic import of the parson’s veil. Even the fact that the narrator only refers to the “subtle power…breathed into [the parson’s] words” instead of quoting him, corresponds with the living presence assumed in the present tense of dialogue (14). Death cannot be quoted because it is the opposite of living, and is therefore an atemporal state. The only times at which the parson is quoted in dialogue is either in his conversation with Elizabeth or Mr. Clark – two occasions in which parson denies his unveiling for the sake of mortal concerns. Both are significant, for each instance includes reported dialogue, and thus an assumed living presence, only the parson in this living presence denies the removal of a garment which represents a condition unavailable to dialogue. For the parson, the denial of removing the veil in reported speech is the same as the denial of linguistic representation. 

          Within the larger context of the story, the parson’s veil is also viewed as an indication of extreme guilt occasioned by some “secret sin” of the parson’s, and represented subsequently by the veil itself. Either way, the fact that dialogue, and its presumptive condition of living in the present moment, comes to us through through the narrator, the nature or purpose of the narrator itself should come into question. Why include some instances of dialogue and then choose only to convey the general subject matter of the parson’s sermon? If it is for the sake of aligning its perspective of the general uncanny effect of the parson with the parishioner’s reaction, then what can be determined about its perspective of the parson?