ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Mr. Hooper is described as “a man apart from men” and that the veil had “kept him in that saddest of all prisons, his own heart"; explain. The veil separated him from the usual community and fellowship with others. Most of the community now feared him and kept him at a distance.

Detailed explanation-2: -In what ways does the veil affect Mr. Hooper’s relationship with his congregation? They begin to distrust Hooper, they gossip about him and think he is holding back a secret.

Detailed explanation-3: -The veil helps Mr. Hooper’s preaching, as the black veil makes its wearer a very efficient clergyman. With its mysterious emblem, he had power over those souls that were in agony for sin. Now that he wore the black veil, he had brought all of his converts to the light as they had all been hiding under the veil.

Detailed explanation-4: -The one positive benefit of the veil is that Mr. Hooper becomes a more efficient clergyman, gaining many converts who feel that they too are behind the black veil with him. Dying sinners call out for him alone.

Detailed explanation-5: -Immediately after Hooper wears the black veil, the people of Milford isolate him from their community. Children and their parents refuse to respond when he greets them, Squire Saunders “forgets” to invite him to dinner, and even his fiancée, Elizabeth, abandons him.