Hawthorne: "The Ministers Black Veil"

    In this short story, the pastor, Reverand Hooper, is the head of a church. Hooper one day shows up to church on sunday with a black veil covering his face. Other than the black veil, he is entirely normal to a typical day. His sermon has the same characteristics as always, and he is dressed clean and sharp. Even though he is normal besides the veil, his congregation only focuses on the veil itself. Some are scared, some scoff, and some are just bothered. The entire town talks about this black veil that he wears everywhere, even to weddings and funerals. He is still himself at these "events" but everyone still is concerned with the veil. The pastor wears this veil his entire life, and is even eventually buried in his tomb, with it still upon his face.
     In the story, pastor Hooper goes to a beloved girl's funeral. He wears his black veil to the funeral and proceeds to do the funeral as normal. During the funeral, he bends down to the girl, and his veil hangs out from his face, so that his face is revealed to the corpse's face. The story says "if her eyelids had not been closed forever, the dead maiden may have seen his face". This could be an exaggeration on the people of his church. The pastor's face was able to be seen by the girl, but her eyes were closed forever. This shows that the pastor never changed, the veil was the only difference, and his the people of the church would have simply opened up there eyes to this, they would have seen the same old pator Hooper that they were all now afraid of.
    At the end of the story, is he buried while he is still alive? That section of the reading is confusing.