Mr. Hooper appears at Sunday service wearing an unexplained black veil covering all but his mouth and chin.

Mr. Hooper delivers a sermon on secret sin that simultaneously unsettles and enraptures his congregation.

The congregation finds Mr. Hooper's veiled sermon more powerful than anything he has ever preached before.

Mr. Hooper officiates a funeral wearing the black veil, unnerving those gathered to mourn.

Mr. Hooper officiates a wedding ceremony while wearing the veil, casting a dismal mood over the celebration.

A delegation of church members attempts to question Mr. Hooper about the veil but loses its nerve entirely.

People begin shunning Mr. Hooper on the street and withdrawing social invitations from him.

Elizabeth asks Mr. Hooper to remove the veil and explain why he is wearing it.

Mr. Hooper refuses to remove the veil, declaring it must forever separate him from all other people.

Elizabeth breaks off her engagement to Mr. Hooper and leaves him alone behind his veil.

Dying sinners across the region begin specifically requesting Mr. Hooper's presence at their deathbeds.

Even the governor of the region travels to Milford to hear Mr. Hooper preach.

Reverend Clark urges the dying Mr. Hooper to lift the veil so it will not shadow his memory.

Mr. Hooper summons his remaining strength to sit up in bed and refuse to have the veil removed.

Mr. Hooper is buried in his grave with the black veil still covering his face.

This pool follows the central arc of Mr. Hooper's story, from the shocking Sunday he first appears in his black veil to the moment he is lowered into the grave with it still on his face. His sermon on secret sin unsettles his congregation, and his persistent wearing of the veil through funerals and weddings establishes his transformed identity in the community. The townspeople's shunning leads to his devastating breakup with Elizabeth, while his growing reputation draws dying sinners and even the governor to his presence. At his deathbed, Reverend Clark implores him to remove the veil, but Mr. Hooper refuses in a final act of defiance. His burial with the veil intact confirms that his lifelong statement was never retracted and that the community learned nothing.

The minister's black veil — from first appearance to final burial.

The sexton is alarmed to see Mr. Hooper approaching the church wearing a black veil.

An old woman in the congregation laments that Mr. Hooper has changed himself into something awful.

Goodman Gray dismisses the veil by declaring that the parson has simply gone mad.

One woman is so overwhelmed during the sermon that she walks out of the church.

Old Squire Saunders breaks with custom and does not invite Mr. Hooper to his usual Sunday lunch.

The entire village spends the following day talking of nothing but the veil and its mystery.

Children in the village mock the minister by chasing one another while pretending to wear black veils.

Mr. Hooper catches a glimpse of himself in a mirror while wearing the veil and flees the room in horror.

Mr. Hooper makes an emotional plea for Elizabeth not to abandon him to loneliness and fear behind the veil.

Mr. Hooper smiles sadly as Elizabeth leaves him, as if already accepting his isolated fate.

Rumors spread throughout Milford that Mr. Hooper communes with the dead from behind his veil.

Visitors travel great distances specifically to witness Mr. Hooper's unusually powerful and affecting sermons.

Elizabeth returns to nurse the dying Mr. Hooper, despite having left him many years before.

After Mr. Hooper's deathbed speech, the gathered witnesses shrink away from one another in mutual fright.

The narrator reveals that a real minister named Mr. Joseph Moody similarly wore a black veil as penance for killing a friend.

This pool explores the townspeople's layered responses to Mr. Hooper's veil and the quieter, telling details of his growing isolation. From the sexton's alarm and the congregation's gossiping declarations to children mocking the minister in the streets, the community's behavior reveals their discomfort with what the veil truly represents. Mr. Hooper's horror at his own reflection and his desperate emotional plea for Elizabeth to stay expose the private suffering hidden behind his public statement. As rumors of his communion with the dead spread and visitors flock from afar to witness his powerful sermons, his reputation becomes stranger and more ambiguous. Elizabeth's unexpected return to his deathbed and the witnesses' fearful reaction to his final words complete a portrait of a community that never genuinely understood its minister. The narrator's closing note about a real-life veiled minister ties the parable back to historical reality.

The community's reactions and the human cost of the veil.

The congregation begins to wonder during the service if Mr. Hooper is hiding his face from God.

The congregation feels as if Mr. Hooper has crept among them and discovered their own hoarded secret sins.

Mr. Hooper blesses the departing congregation with a melancholy smile visible beneath the veil.

The townspeople quickly conclude that the veil must be hiding a grave personal sin of Mr. Hooper's.

The physician calmly tells his frightened wife that men are sometimes afraid to be alone with themselves.

Mr. Hooper tells Elizabeth that the veil is a type and a symbol but refuses to explain further.

Elizabeth urges Mr. Hooper to remove the veil to escape the damaging rumors and scandal spreading through town.

Mr. Hooper solemnly warns Elizabeth that one day all people must lift their own symbolic veils.

After Elizabeth leaves, Mr. Hooper reflects that only a material emblem had separated him from happiness.

Mr. Hooper grows unable to walk the streets with peace of mind as people constantly cross over to avoid him.

The community comes to believe the veil gives Mr. Hooper special power to comfort souls dying in agony for sin.

Reverend Clark asks the dying Mr. Hooper what horrible crime the veil was meant to conceal.

Mr. Hooper demands to know why the people trembled at him alone when every visage wears its own black veil.

Mr. Hooper laments on his deathbed that the people showed him no pity despite being sinners themselves.

Mr. Hooper dies still wearing the veil, having never revealed its true meaning to any living person.

This pool focuses on the deeper turning points and revelations that give the story its moral and psychological weight. From the congregation's first guilty sense that Mr. Hooper can see their sins to the physician's quiet acknowledgment that men sometimes fear themselves, these events uncover the true meaning beneath the surface narrative. The intimate exchange between Mr. Hooper and Elizabeth exposes both his cryptic insistence on the veil's symbolic purpose and his reluctant resignation to loneliness. The middle events trace how Mr. Hooper's reputation as a powerful figure for sinners grows even as his daily life becomes increasingly unbearable. At his deathbed, Reverend Clark's pointed question about crime is met with Mr. Hooper's explosive declaration that all of humanity wears its own black veil. Mr. Hooper dies with the veil's deepest secret intact, confirming the tragic futility of his lifelong parable.