Interpretation of the Minister’s Black Veil From Psychoanalysis

Yang Xiaoli

(School of Foreign Studies　Xinjiang Agricultural University,Urumchi　xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region　830052)



Interpretation of the Minister’s Black Veil From Psychoanalysis

Yang Xiaoli

(School of Foreign StudiesXinjiang Agricultural University,Urumchixinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region830052)

Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American Romantism novelist who lived in the nineteenth century.He was born in Salem Massachusetts and his families were Puritans in early time.In the eighteenth century,the Hawthornes was declined.Hathorne’s father passed away at his four.Fortunately,with the help of relatives of his mother,Hawthorne received good education,which lay solid literary foundation for his future writing career.To some extent,the long story The Scarlet Letter — a masterpiece of American Romantism granted reputable status to Hawthorne in American literature history.Nevertheless,Hawthorne was known by American literature field by virtue of his ingenious short stories,especially novels of psychoanalysis.In his writing,Hawthorne always paid attention to describe sins which were intolerable for Puritanism and social ethics.He dug into characters’ psychological conflicts and changes as well as their impacts on characters’ extrinsic behaviors.

The Minister’s Black Veil is a pretty good story in Hawthorne’s first short story collection Twice-Told Tales (Twice-Told Tales,1837).Critics hold different point of views toward connotations of the minister’s wearing of black veil.However,these views generally fall into three categories.The first group of critics focuses on a usual theme of Hawthorne’s works — original sin,which always occupies dominating place in his works.Feng Qinglin points out that according to Hawthorne,if one wants to save the society,he must first save himself.Richard Harter Foggle believes that the reason for the minister’s trap of sin is derived from his “ strong sense of dignity”.The second group of critics emphasizes on interpretation of Hawthorne’s writing style.Zhang Lixin holds that black in the story symbolizes “ sin,death,indifference,loneliness,fearfulness and misery.” William Davis also agrees that the black veil symbolizes “ the dark side of human nature”.The last group concentrates on discussing about Hawthorne’s contradictory religious views.Liu Lixia put forwards her interpretation on Hawthorne’s “ approval and suspicion” over Puritanism.Such conflict to some extent is an attraction to readers.Ye Lixin thinks that in light of Hawthorne,the original sin of human beings has already being evil humanity.Hawthorne tried to find out a way to save man by attacking Puritanism,however,he had to end his efforts by returning back to Puritan creeds at last.In addition,several other critics explore the theme of the story from Nietzsche’s Apollonian and Dionysius aesthetic principle or present Hawthorne’s writing traits by theoretical approaches of “ narratology,stylistics and semiotics”.In this article,the author tries to explore Hawthorne’s writing style by analyzing The Minister’s Black Veil from the perspective of Freud’s theory of relationship among ego,id and superego.

Sigmund Freud,the founder of psychoanalytic theory,put forward many incisive views about literary and artistic creation,literary criticism and aesthetics,among which three-level personality structure theory states that personality can be divided into three levels,namely,id,ego and superego.Id is the most original,subconscious and irrational mental structure filling with strong impulse of instincts and desires and dominating by principle of happiness while pursues for satisfaction.Ego is a part deriving from id after being modified under the influence of intuition system.It represents ration,common sense and acting according to realistic principles.Ego employs enormous energy to control and curb irrational impulse from id and meanwhile grants the latter with proper sense of satisfaction indirectly.Superego is the high level,ethical and ego-surpassing mental structure in personality,which regulates ego by supreme principle such as conscientiousness and self ideal.Once id and ego cannot keep compatible with each other,superego will resort to punishing measures mercilessly.Actually,human mental is a multilevel and interactive power system with energy storing in id.In terms of levels of consciousness,id resembles subconsciousness,whose activities never obey rational and logical principles.The unconscious id,although quite chaotic and aimless,is still inclusive and powerful.Ego is also a part of id modified by medium of consciousness under direct influence of the exterior world.It holds a partial affirmation and partial negation attitude towards human intrinsic desires.Superego is not only a negation to ego but also a deposit of ego.Ego coordinates and unifies the chaotic id and the ideal superego in reality so that normal mental mechanism can be maintained.In The Minister’s Black Veil,the tripartite personalities of Mr.Hooper fiercely contradict with each other and his invalid self-adjustment eventually leads to his abnormal personality.

At the beginning of the story,the author describes the minister:about thirty,gentlemanly and reputable for his preach.He always persuades congregation with pleasurable words.That is,in the author’s words,“ he strove to win his people heavenward by mild,persuasive influences,rather than to drive them thither by the thunders of the world”.He appears to be a friend and spiritual guide of adults and a well-wisher of children.It is not difficult to observe that Mr.Hooper’s good living habits,notable personalities of respecting the senior and caring for the junior as well as his cautious working attitude bring him respect and love from the congregation.This fully shows that ego exerts a pretty good adjustment function between id and superego,or in other words between id impulsion and social interests.The author constrains a person’s intrinsic desire within social acceptance and creates a respectful minister.The minister is adored by Elizabeth and he loves her too.The world is made of men and women.As a natural principle,the attraction of opposites is human instinct and belongs to category of id.Due to human’s creation of civilization and culture and use of the two to generate order,the intrinsic id has to fight against the social superego and at the same time struggle for its surviving space unswervingly.Sensual desire is a basic instinct of human beings which is primitive and turbid.The energetic and wild sensual desire always tries to be unbounded.Without knowing what is value,beauty and ugliness,it just pursues for get rid of tension.Such powerful intrinsic desire dominates that the minister,like others,is eager for love and being loved and for woman’s affection.However,the desire can neither be indulged nor be buried at the bottom of one’s heart without the opportunity to be exposed.Such binary opposition relationship either cannot maintain the normal order of material world or normal mental mechanism of human spirit.Nevertheless,in the story,despite of the binary opposition,the minister constrains his love for Elizabeth and rejects the latter’s love given his religious belief and notable responsibilities.As a minister,he prays for the newly-born,laments the dead and wishes for bless for all.He abandons his sensual desire and cuts up link between him and the outside world,thus he violate the truth that a sage must also be a man too.The minister absolutely curbs his instinct,which tends to be a basic cause of his mental imbalance.

Socrates long ago asked people to “ know yourself”.The thing that truly scares you is neither other people nor external environment,but just yourself.Everyone oppress his or her id and pursues for the ideal superego.Mr.Hooper,the minister,like all others,devotes to purity and perfection and people around him believe that he is perfect.However,what the minister does not figure out is that such perfection is not absolute and it bears requisite with it.The requisite is that intrinsic is the foundation of ego and id.It is just like a corner of an iceberg,brutal and powerful.One day when the minister finds that he is sinful or he also has evil thoughts,his angel-like perfection request makes him cannot accept the deeply-buried id.The self-negative id and the self-affirmative superego drive him to unveil the guilt which is symbolized by black veil.Although the minister’s guilt is unclear,a murder happened right that day he wearing a veil.Previously,a legend goes that there was a minister named Joseph Moody who also wore a veil like Mr.Hooper does.Nevertheless,Mr.Moody wore a veil in that he killed a friend of him when he was young and since then on,he wore the veil until he died.This makes the guilt perceived by the minister get connected with the girl’s death.The minister wears a veil without a reason,which tempts the congregation and readers to guess and explore the connotation of black veil.In a sense,the black veil hides guilt and meanwhile exposes guilt.The minister’s ego,affected by Puritanism,leads him to confront the guilt while his superego,pursuing for perfection,tries to hides the guilt.During his unswerving pursuit of the perfect superego,he unconsciously digs out the deep-hided sin of id.Then scarceness and darkness trapped him and impact people around him profoundly.When Mr.Hooper prays at the meeting-house with a veil on his face,Such was the effect of this simple piece of crape,that more than one woman of delicate nerves was force to leave the meeting-house”.“ As he stooped,the veil hung straight down from his forehead,so that,if her eyelids had not been closed forever,the dead maiden might have been seen his face…at the instant when the clergyman’s features were disclosed,the corpse had slightly shuddered”.That is,not only the living people,but also the corpse fear about the black veil symbolizing sins.A delegate team of congregation is organized to meet Mr.Hooper,however,except for sitting there silently,they barely say anything.They try to avoid eye contact with the minister during the whole process and eventually leave awkwardly.People’s fearfulness over sins and some traits of personality can be observed thoroughly.Albeit his inner turbulence,the minister is still unwilling to put off the black veil.A comparatively fierce conflict between the minister’s id and superego happens when he breaks up with his fiancee Elizabeth.A bitter fight breaks out among sense of fearfulness for loneliness deriving from being abandoned by other people,the id that pursues for sensual desire and superego that pursues for perfection.Such conflict goes worse and cannot be settled down eventually.As a result,the minister is set apart from pleasurable humanity and woman’s love.That is,his ego fails to adjust conflict between id and superego.When he is wishing happiness to the new married couple,Mr.Hooper catches a glimpse of his figure in the looking-glass and he is scared.“ his frame shuddered,his lips grew white,he split the untasted wine upon the carpet,and rushed forth the darkness”.“…nor stooped to drink at a still fountain,lest,its peaceful bosom,he should be affrighted by himself”.What man scares most is the deep id.Like the minister,all people in the story bear conflict in their mental between the inner id and superego.However,with the help of the minister,those people effectively coordinate relationship between id and superego and maintain their mental balance.

“…that,before he brought them to celestial,they had been with him behind the black veil.Its gloomy,indeed,enabled him to sympathize with all dark affections.Dying inners cried aloud for Mr.Hooper,and would not yield their breath till he appears”.Apparently,when it comes to sin,the congregation are as fearfulness as Mr.Hooper.If they are not scared of the evil id and pursue for the perfect superego,why are they frightened of the minister’s black veil? Nevertheless,a valid adjustment by reality can coordinate the three personalities.To some extent,the minister resembles ego for others.With his accommodation,the surrounding people tend to be maturer,calmer,more cautious and wiser and keep a sound relationship with others.Ego,serving as an agency of id to deal with external things,on the one hand can satisfy id in a more economy and effective way(wishing happiness for the new couple at wedding ceremony,lamenting the dead at funeral) and on the other hand,can protect id from being destroyed due to its conflict with the external world when dominating by blind impulsion(...he paid due reverence to the hoary heads,saluted the middle aged with kind dignity as their friend and spiritual guide,greeted the young with mingled authority and love).Unfortunately,the minister does not meet demand from his own id effectively,but rather he chooses to oppress it.Ego adopts the supreme good principle but ignores the realistic principle.A balance relationship among id,ego and superego is transferred into the latter two’s oppression over id.As a result,id,ego and superego are disproportional and imbalance,which contributes to collapse of normal mental mechanism.

The story does not tell about why Mr.Hooper wears a black veil.Not matter the defined reality or people’s suspicion,the black veil symbolizes evil or moral sin.Superego which represents religion,ethics and social responsibility and id which represent sensual desire and death,conflict with each other fiercely.This is the contradictory inner side of the minister.As a result,the kind and conscience minister does not only get unpopular among congregation but be a fright to them.The contradictory inner side of the minister,to some extent is a reflection of mental status of Hawthorne himself.The author was not a Puritan,but Puritanism thoughts left by his ancestors affected his life as well as his writing dramatically.Hawthorne’s views toward Human beings and human history are derived from Puritanism.On the one hand,he criticized Puritan,especially ideas of Calvinism like “original sin” and “ inner depravity”,etc;on the other hand,he could not get rid of bondage of these creeds.The conflict between the author’s consciousness and unconsciousness is reflected in Hooper’s wearing of black veil.

It can be seen that a man’s ego in reality,id which represents evil and superego which pursues for perfection,if they can coordinate with and constrain each other,the man’s mental balance will be achieved and his behaviors will be accepted by others.Once he fail to achieve such balance,his personality will become abnormal,which means a collapse of his healthy mental mechanism and the man will be isolated by surrounding people.Marcus said that as long as we are still trapped in the body,we must assume certain responsibilities and do what the destiny ask us to do.Actually,every one is put in a proper position in daily life,and a short leave of that place will bring risks that one must lose the position.In The Minister’s Black Veil,the minister stirs up conflicts between the evil id which is originally kept in deep personality and superego,however,he fails to settle down those conflicts with ego in reality.He hides himself behind a black veil and cuts off relations with his relatives and others.Without responding to Elizabeth love and being abandoned by the world,he spends the rest of his life with loneliness and depression.

Notes:

〔1〕Carnochan W.B.,The Minister’s Black Veil,Nineteenth-Century Fiction 24,1969,pp.185-187.

〔2〕Nathanial Hawthorne:Twice-Told Tales，The Minister’s Black Veil，Introduction by Francis R.Gemme,1837,p.24,p.27,p.28,p.32,Airmont Publishing Co.,Inc.，1984.

〔3〕Richard Harter Foggle An Ambiguity of Sin or Sorrow,in New England Quarterly,12,1948,pp.342-349.

〔4〕William V.,Davis Hawthorne’s The Black Minister’s Black Veil：A Note on the Significance of the Subtitle,Explicator.

〔5〕车文博：《弗洛伊德文集〈自我与本我〉》，长春出版社，2004年，第108、129页。

〔6〕董亮：《夜色朦胧——评霍桑的短篇小说〈牧师的黑面纱〉》，《湖南大学学报》2001年第3期。

〔7〕冯川：《文学与心理学》，四川人民出版社，2003年，第56页。

〔8〕刘丽霞：《论霍桑小说创作中的宗教精神》，《山东外语教学》1996年第4期。

〔9〕马庆林：《人性的罪恶——霍桑作品主题分析》，《宁夏社会科学》2002年第6期。

〔10〕叶立新：《从〈牧师的黑面纱〉看霍桑的清教观》，《乌鲁木齐职业大学学报》1996年第4期。

〔11〕张立新：《论霍桑〈教长的黑面纱〉中啊“黑色”的象征意义》，《佳木斯大学社会科学学报》1996年第4期。

〔12〕郑杰：《对〈牧师的黑面纱〉中梦境与醉境的解读》，《咸宁学院学报》1996年第3期。

The Minister’s Black Veil is one of Hawthorne’s most influential short novels.The black veil in it symbolizes the sin.This paper based on the Freudian theory — the three structures of personality:id,ego and superego,is to point out that the process of the minister’s wearing the veil is that of the interacting and compromising of the three personalities and that the alienation of the minister’s personality is caused by the imbalance of the three personalities.

Hawthorne;the black veil;id;ego;superego

About the author：Yang Xiaoli,lecturer at School of Foreign Studies,Xinjiang Agricultural University.