The writings of Hawthorne, then, as in "The Minsiter's Black Veil," explored the conflict between good and evil and the psychological effects of guilt and sin. Behind the pasteboard masks of social respectability, the Dark Romantics saw the blankness and the horror of evil. It is this idea that Hawthorne deliberately plays with in this story as he forces the villagers to confront the hidden sin within themselves through the symbol of Mr. Hooper wearing an outer sign of his own secret sin.