The tone of “The Minister’s Black Veil” is formal and elevated, with moments of sarcasm at the expense of the townspeople. The elevated tone of the story mirrors the exaggerated self-importance of its characters, while the sarcasm mocks the hypocrisy of a group of people who would shun someone for his appearance while at the same time claiming to be above such things.
Take, for example, the reaction of the townspeople when Reverend Hooper gives his first sermon wearing the black veil. Although he preaches just as he always has, his congregation perceives his words as more compelling than they have been in the past, because the veil lends him an air of authority, mystery, and dreadful power:
It was strange to observe how slowly [the old man] became conscious of something singular in the appearance of his pastor. He seemed not fully to partake of the prevailing wonder, till Mr. Hooper had ascended the stairs, and showed himself in the pulpit, face to face with his congregation, except for the black veil. That mysterious emblem was never once withdrawn. It shook with his measured breath, as he gave out the psalm; it threw its obscurity between him and the holy page, as he read the Scriptures; and while he prayed, the veil lay heavily on his uplifted countenance. Did he seek to hide it from the dread Being whom he was addressing?
Such was the effect of this simple piece of crape, that more than one woman of delicate nerves was forced to leave the meeting-house.
In this passage, the tone shifts from elevated formality when relating Reverend Hooper’s sermon in the first paragraph to sarcasm when describing the women “of delicate nerves” in the second. In the first paragraph, the rhythm of the sentences mimics that of a sermon. Short clauses broken up by commas and semicolons give the sentences the same sort of mesmerizing rhythm of a highly oratorical sermon, mirroring Hooper’s own speech patterns as he preaches and drawing the reader under the same spell that the townspeople find themselves under as they listen to him speak. However, this spell is abruptly broken in the second paragraph, when the black veil—which is grandly referred to as “that mysterious emblem” in the first—is dismissed by the narrator as “that simple piece of crape.” This shift in diction highlights the fact that the veil is in fact a small and insignificant scrap of fabric, which makes the women’s—and, indeed, everyone else in the town’s—extreme reactions to it seem all the more ridiculous.
The tone of the story becomes less humorous and more tragic after Reverend Hooper refuses to take the veil off even for his fiancée Elizabeth, which results in her ending their engagement and him spending the rest of his life alone and ostracized by his community. This marks a turning point in the story where Reverend Hooper’s choice to wear the veil ceases to be a teaching tool and starts to instead become an act of self-righteous stubbornness.
