SOURCE: “Literary Technique and Psychological Effect in Hawthorne's ‘The Minister's Black Veil,’” in Literature and Psychology, Vol. XXIV, No. 3, 1974, pp. 115-23.

In the following essay, Quinn and Baldessarini claim that Hawthorne never makes clear Mr. Hooper's motives for wearing the black veil because he wants to show that even the minister is unconscious of what the veil is meant to hide.

Critical appraisal of the ability of Nathaniel Hawthorne to analyze and convey his appreciation of human psychology has varied greatly in the past century. At first, between his death and the turn of the century, Hawthorne achieved an exalted position in the popular imagination partly because of his expression of a traditional New England Protestant morality. The decreasing acceptance of this moral tradition may partially explain his diminished popularity in the early decades of this century. Furthermore, many critics, while admiring aspects of his artistry, considered his...