Nathaniel Hawthorne's short stories "The Minister's Black Veil" and "Young Goodman Brown" are two stories that are thick with allegory. "Young Goodman Brown" is a moral story which is told through the perversion of a common townsperson. In "Young Goodman Brown," Goodman Brown is a Puritan who lets his excessive pride in himself interfere with his relations with the community after he meets with the devil and causes him to live the life of an exile in his own community. "The Minister's Black Veil" is also a moral story that is told through the perversion of a Puritan religious leader. In "The Minister's Black Veil," Parson Hooper is abashed of his own sin and attempts to disguise his sin with a black veil. In an ironic way, Parson Hooper and Goodman Brown are both wearing a veil of guilt to cover up their own sins. This veil later becomes the main symbol of guilt, excessive pride, and hidden sins.

What exactly is guilt? Guilt is remorseful awareness of having done something wrong. Goodman Brown and Parson Hooper are two men that are guilty of some type of wrong behavior. Their guilt arrives from an act of sin. "Young Goodman Brown" begins when Faith, Brown's wife, asks him not to go

out on an errand to meet the devil. This errand later becomes the center of his guilt. Goodman Brown's guilt is carried around with him like an invisible veil that will never uncover him. In the same way, Parson Hooper has a veil that covers part of his face to hide his face from his congregation because of how guilty he feels. When Goodman Brown finally meets with the devil, he declares that the reason he is late is because "Faith kept me back awhile" (Hawthorne 1237). This statement has a double meaning because his wife physically prevents him from being on time for his meeting with the devil, the wrongdoing that causes Goodman Brown's whole sense of guilt. When Goodman Brown comes back to the town, he projects his guilt onto those around him. His pride "...rises within him to cast a shadow over the apparent realities of life in Salem that he once took as visible evidence of sanctity" (Martin 84). Goodman Brown feels he can push his own faults onto others and look down at them rather than look at himself and resolve his own faults with himself. The rest of his life is destroyed because of his inability to face this truth and live with it. In "The Minister's Black Veil," Hooper commits a sin and is ashamed by it so he covers his face to hide from the sin. He also does this to prove that no one is perfect and that everyone makes mistakes. On critic states that "Hooper is more closely related to those who withdrew actively as a result of a misguiding religious zeal" (Newman 200). This may be the result of how Hooper allows himself to commit a sin that he is forever guilty of. These two men are alike in that both of their feelings of guilt arrives from a sin that neither is aware that they committed. This sin is an allegory of the veil; the veil that will forever cover Goodman Brown and Parson Hooper.

Sin is an issue that every human being has to deal with at one time or another in his or her lifetime. Some people try to hide their sins, some try to push them aside, and some try to deal with their sins in a more conventional way. The largest place for confessing sin in the world is the confessional booth at a church. People go to tell their sins and feel cleansed afterwards. But what happens when a man who hears confessions day after day sins himself. There is no confession booth for the man to go to. He must deal with his sin in his own way, a way that will leave him feeling cleansed. Mr. Hooper, the minister in "The Minister's Black Veil," and Go

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Approximate Word count = 1662
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)