Webster's defines shame as "a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, shortcoming or impropriety." Social scientists Merle Fossum and Marilyn Mason write that experiencing feelings of shame can be like facing a dragon poised to mercilessly devour its victim.1 As with many other psychological disorders, feelings of shame are often inherited from our ancestors. Fortunately for those who experience it, the dragon can be conquered. Fossum and Mason believe that, with therapy, feelings of shame can be successfully addressed.

It is apparent to me that the findings of the social scientist follow slowly and long after the insightful perceptions of the poet and novelist. Feelings of shame, as experienced in the characters of a novel, short story or poem, provide the psychological framework around which writers construct plots. The work of the nineteenth century American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) is a good example of how feelings of shame are thematic in works of literature.

Because of his guilt-ridden past, Hawthorne was well aware of the dragon poised to mercilessly devour him.2 He attempted to use the process of writing as a catharsis to rid himself of the devastating pain of feelings of shame. Although the theme of familial shame may be found in almost all of Hawthorne's writing, I believe that "The Minister's Black Veil" (1836) is one of his most vivid depictions.

In the story, young Parson Hooper appears one Sunday morning on the steps of his country church wearing a black veil, from behind which he preaches and performs all his parish duties. Many years later, Hawthorne tells us, he enters the grave "a veiled corpse" and his body decays beneath the veil's moldy remnants. Hooper explains that the veil is "a sign of mourning" and covers some "secret sin." By wearing the black veil, he has publically and communally manifested his inner feelings of shame which he has inherited either from his family or from the larger Puritan community and exposed them to the light of day.

For all the confusion and anxiety it causes, however, wearing the "mysterious emblem" has a positive effect on Hooper: he becomes a better preacher. Hawthorne writes: "A subtle power was breathed into his words."3 Although the veil strikes terror in the hearts of his parishioners, it had the one desirable effect of making Hooper a "very effective clergyman ... he became a man of awful power over souls that were in agony for sin."4

Why is this so? As a person, Hooper desires to address and externalize his feelings of shame for some obviously unspeakable sin, but as a preacher, he has something to teach his congregation from his own experience about their feelings of shame. Externalizing feelings of shame is not only a methodology for addressing the personally debilitating psychological effects of the disorder, but also a ceremonial one for treating spiritual ailments, as we see in the Penitential Rite of the Roman Catholic Mass and other religious denominations.