The themes of "The Minister's Black Veil" and "Young Goodman Brown" are similar in that they both are about sins and secrets; sins of the person, and secrets held for others. Hooper and Goodman both go through an ordeal where they need to "fight the devil". Both lose the fight and must live their lives forever changed because of it. Hooper is hiding a secret from his past; while, Goodman finds out others secrets. These two events lead Hooper to being treated differently by his congregation. They would question him often because they sense he is not telling everything about himself, he has a past that they feel they have a right to know about. .
The fear of not knowing, can lead people to doing terrible things. They fear what could be, what may have been, and what that would mean for them. "But what if the world will not believe that it is the type of an innocent sorrow? Beloved and respected as you are, there may be whispers, that you hide your face under the consciousness of secret sin. For the sake of your holy office, do away this scandal" (Hawthorne). This quote is from "Black Veil" it is where Elizabeth is warning the minister the threat he is under from keeping his secrets. Goodman, unlike Hooper, does not have a personal secret he keeps hidden; he however, learns that people are not what they seem. Everyone has a secret, because everyone has done some bad things in the past. This knowledge leads him to behaving erratically towards his congregation. He no longer feels as connected to them as he once did. He loves his wife less than he once had. He even no longer trusts anyone fully. He is always watchful and cautious, never truly relaxing. People pick up on this and treat him differently, accordingly. "And when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave, a hoary corpse they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone; for his dying hour was gloom" (Goodman Brown).
