Minister Morse Peckham's Black Veil Theme in "The Development of Hawthorne's Romanticism" explains what he interprets to be Hawthorne's main theme in his short stories: This technical, although Hawthorne's is different from that of European writers, he creates analogies between the self and the non-self, between the personality and the worlds. . . Henceforth, Hawthorne's theme is the redemption of the self through the acceptance and exploitation of what society calls the guilt of the individual but which, for the Romantic, is the guilt of society (92). The interplay between the guilt of the individual, Reverend Mr. Hooper, and the guilt of society underlies Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Black Veil of the Minister" from beginning to end. In fact, the priest’s final words underline this fact: “I look around me and, lo! on every face a black veil!''But is guilt the main theme? Clarice Swisher in “Nathaniel Hawthorne: a Biography” states: “When Hawthorne called his stories “romances,” he meant that they belonged to the Romantic movement which…. . . . emphasize imagination and personal freedom” (18). In this tale, where does this “personal freedom” lead? This leads to a Puritan priest masking his face with a crepe, which, in turn, leads to his alienation by the parishioners. Is this the most dominant theme? Theme is “the general concept or doctrine, implied or stated, that an imaginative work is designed to incorporate and make compelling to the reader” (Abrams 170). In this tale, the dominant theme is, for this reader, a man's alienation from society. Hyatt Wagoner in "Nathaniel Hawthorne" says: Alienation is perhaps the theme he treats most powerfully...... middle of paper ...... Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Peckham, Morse. “The Development of Hawthorne Romanticism.” In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Sullivan, Wilson. “Nathaniel Hawthorne.” In New England Men of Letters. New York: Macmillan Co., 1972. Swisher, Clarice. “Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Biography.” In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Wagoner, Hyatt. “Nathaniel Hawthorne.” In Six Nineteenth-Century American Novelists, edited by Richard Foster. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1968. Williams, Stanley T. “The Puritan Spirit of Hawthorne.” In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996.