Reverend Hooper's veil is, of course, the central symbol in the story, and its effects
on Hooper's life, the lives of his fiance, Elizabeth, and his congregation are profoundly
negative. Indeed, many readers, as well as Hawthorne's critics, have wondered why Hooper, upon
realizing that the veil's symbolic meaning is misunderstood, doesn't attempt to make his intent
clear.
The symbolic meaning of the veil, despite the fact that Hooper's
congregation is too unnerved to understand it, is made explicit in the sermon Hooper gives the
day he puts the veil on:
The subject had reference to
secret sin, and those sad mysteries which we hide from out nearest and dearest, and would fain
conceal form our own consciousness, even forgetting that the Omniscient [that is, God] can
detect them.
We know from the narration that everyone
who heard this sermon feels as if Hooper...
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