Dramatic irony is a literary device that highlights the difference between what a character knows about a given situation and what the reader knows. In “The Minister’s Black Veil,” dramatic irony is used to show that Reverend Hooper isn’t as justified in wearing the black veil as he thinks he is. The effect of dramatic irony is achieved in this story through the use of a third-person narrator with a distinct personality of their own.
The narrator in “The Minister’s Black Veil” gives readers some insight into the thoughts and feelings of the story’s characters, but for the most part watches them from a removed distance. They seem to agree with the perspective of neither the townspeople nor Reverend Hooper, and, instead of taking sides, highlight through a subtly mocking and sarcastic tone that both are foolish in their own ways.
A significant moment of dramatic irony comes at the end of the story, when the minister refuses to take off his veil even as he lays dying:
Reverend Mr. Clark bent forward to reveal the mystery of so many years [beneath Hooper’s veil]. But, exerting a sudden energy, that made all the beholders stand aghast, Father Hooper snatched both his hands from beneath the bedclothes, and pressed them strongly on the black veil, resolute to struggle, as if the minister of Westbury could contend with a dying man […] Father Hooper’s breath heaved; it rattled in his throat, but, with a mighty effort, grasping forward with his hands, he caught hold of life, and held it back till he could speak. He even raised himself in bed; and there he sat, shivering with the arms of death around him.
Here the narrator paints Reverend Hooper’s insistence on keeping the veil on in an absurd light. Like a child hiding from an irrational fear, he covers his face with both hands, unwilling even in his final moments, “with the arms of death around him,” to let anyone see his face. At this point in the story, his determination not to remove the veil is based not on a generous desire to teach his congregation a lesson through example, but rather on pure stubbornness and pride. He is also, significantly, covering his eyes in this passage, symbolizing the fact that he is unwilling to see the truth—that he was wrong to isolate himself from his community just to prove a point—even on the verge of death.
The dramatic irony continues after Hooper has successfully deterred the people around him from removing his veil, and he finally dies:
Father Hooper fell back upon his pillow, a veiled corpse, with a faint smile lingering on his lips. Still veiled, they lay him in his coffin, and a veiled corpse they bore him to the grave. The grass of many years has sprung up and withered on the grave, the burial stone is moss-grown, and good Mr. Hooper’s face is dust; but awful still is the thought that it mouldered beneath the Black Veil!
The narrator’s repetition of the word “veiled” in the above passage highlights the absurdity of a veiled corpse. The narrator also explicitly states here that they disagree with Hooper’s decision to die still wearing the veil, calling it “awful.” This passage also contains dramatic irony in that it shows Hooper didn’t get his wish in the end. He had hoped that he would finally be able to remove his “veil” (both literally and metaphorically) in Heaven, but this final sentence suggests that by insisting on wearing the veil in life, he will continue to do so even after death.
