The story explores the social processes of prejudice and hypocrisy, as illustrated by the villagers of Milford in response to Reverend Mr. Hooper. The story is set into motion by Mr. Hooper’s sudden decision, one Sunday morning, to don a black veil. This choice elicits a range of reactions from the villagers, although the prevailing mood in the village is one of fear and misunderstanding. Immediately, the villagers remark that the reverend “has changed himself into something awful only by hiding his face” and that he “has gone mad!” Without having tried to understand Mr. Hooper’s actions, the villagers turn to judgement. 

Hawthorne considers the human tendency for prejudice in much of his fiction, often with a particular interest in how the culture of Puritan New England gives rise to it. And indeed, in “The Minister’s Black Veil,” the propriety of Puritan society appears to contribute to Mr. Hooper’s harsh reception:

It was remarkable that, of all the busybodies and impertinent people in the parish, not one ventured to put the plain question to Mr. Hooper wherefore he did this thing.

The primness of the villagers contributes to their initial shock and scorn at Mr. Hooper’s eccentricity, but it simultaneously prevents them from confronting the matter directly. The villagers who finally endeavor to ask Mr. Hooper the relevant question “return abashed,” having failed to follow through.

There is an irony in the fact that the villagers’ judgments of Mr. Hooper ultimately prove to be hypocritical. After gossiping and speculating about his decision to wear the veil, assuming that his “conscience tortured him for some great crime too horrible to be entirely concealed,” the villagers discover that the veil signifies a crime for which they, too, are guilty. As Mr. Hooper declares on his deathbed, the veil represents secretiveness, the tendency to shield one’s “inmost heart.” And in his final address, he points indignantly at the hypocrisy of his treatment: “Why do you tremble at me? . . . Tremble also at each other.”