How does the time period affect the literature in "The Minister's Black Veil" and how does the literature affect the time period?

During the time in which Hawthorne wrote "The Minister's Black Veil" (the late 1830s), most people looked back on the Puritans with a mixture of horror and shame.  The Salem Witch Trials had tarnished Puritanism in America promptly and permanently.  Thus, Hawthorne's contemporaries tended to judge their Puritan forebears pretty harshly.  This story reflects that judgment because only poor Mr. Hooper, the town minister, is willing to face up to the truth about humanity: that...

During the time in which Hawthorne wrote "The Minister's Black Veil" (the late 1830s), most people looked back on the Puritans with a mixture of horror and shame.  The Salem Witch Trials had tarnished Puritanism in America promptly and permanently.  Thus, Hawthorne's contemporaries tended to judge their Puritan forebears pretty harshly.  This story reflects that judgment because only poor Mr. Hooper, the town minister, is willing to face up to the truth about humanity: that we all harbor secret sins which we feel compelled to conceal from the world, and, as a result of this deceptive concealment, none of us can ever be truly known by or know another person.  We are all sinners, and all but Mr. Hooper are liars.  His congregation recognizes the truth of his sermons and the symbolism of his veil, but they refuse to acknowledge their understanding of this truth because to admit that they get it would also mean that it is, indeed, true, that they are all secret sinners.  Mr. Hooper, then, is ostracized for the entirety of his life because the sight of his veil and all it symbolizes is too horrible for them to bear.  This does not paint the Puritans in a very good light.

However, the truth that only Mr. Hooper is brave enough to tell doesn't just apply to his contemporaries, but to Hawthorne's as well.  Hawthorne's peers are no more exempt from the truth of the black veil than Mr. Hooper's congregation had been.  Although they might prefer to think of themselves as better than the Puritans, more truly pious, they are not.  They are as guilty as their ancestors because the story addresses human nature, not Puritan nature, and humans are sinful.  Instead of simply holding up a mirror to the Puritans, Hawthorne might wish his contemporaries to hold up that same mirror to see the truth about themselves.