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Critical analysis over the scarlet letter
Character analysis on the scarlet letter essay
Nathaniel hawthorne themes
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Although all humans are born with the tendency and ability to sin, it is whether or not we intentionally choose to do it. Confessing a sin requires a sincere apology, which some people lack the possession of. In The Scarlet Letter, a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne is publically shamed for committing adultery and getting pregnant with a Puritan town leader and reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. While Hester is relived of her sin, Dimmesdale has not confessed and has to live with the guilt. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne illustrates the positive effects of confession, penance, and personal responsibility. Hester Prynne did not have to live with guilt all this time, but she put up with the criticism of the town and completely …show more content…
For a brutal seven years, Dimmesdale lives with the guilt of knowing that he has committed a major sin and has not been able to move on in his life. Hester, on the other hand, continues on with her life and is eventually free again. This is defiantly not the case for Dimmesdale. He states, “be not silent for any mistaken pity…” yet Dimmesdale is too cowardly to listen to himself (59)! Hiding a “guilty heart through life” does not give him a free pass yet the secrecy and guilt eats him alive to the point where he is no longer able to function properly (116). Arthur is so guilty for what he has done, not only is he suffering from a bodily disease but he is “…gnawed and tortured by some black trouble of the soul…” (116). Dimmesdale claims the exposure of his sin to the public is, “…too mighty for me to struggle with” but Dimmesdale real struggle for him is to man up and show mercy (163). Hester is a perfect example of Hawthorne’s ideals that man lives better when he has confessed his sins, so Dimmesdale would be better off doing that rather than attempting to live with the guilt. Hawthorne uses Dimmesdale to symbolize the negative effects of guilt on a person when they do not take responsibility for their actions. This theory ultimately destroys Dimmesdale so much his guiltiness blinds his ability to see God’s …show more content…
Although Chillingworth had done nothing to physically hurt Dimmesdale, he was killing him without doing anything. Dimmesdale has gotten so weak and defenseless Hester has to try to convince Chillingworth to stop taunting and torturing him or else he will die. Yet Chillingworth asks, “What evil have I done to the man?” realizing his plan of revenge is one he can get away with easily (141). Admitting he has not done anything to physical hurt Dimmesdale, Roger’s once reputable, knowledgeable, and scholarly ideals had been flushed down the toilet when this knew occurrence had arisen. For all the seven years Hester has moved on with her life to be the town hero, Chillingworth has been wasting his life away by trying to get Dimmesdale to kill himself with the burden of guilt he put on himself. But isn’t that a worse sin? Chillingworth’s revenge is all intentional to essentially destroy another human being. Dimmesdale states that Chillingworth’s revenge “has been blacker than my sin” and that he wanted the sanctity of another human heart (161). When Hester and Dimmesdale sinned, they sinned out of love for each other, not to seek the harm of another person. Chillingworth’s major sin ends up corrupting himself completely similar to Dimmesdale. He is constantly fighting a battle he can never win and does not
Lastly Nathaniel Hawthorne brings out that we absolutely must accept responsibility for our actions or suffer the consequences come with them. Hester is the prime example for this here because she was smart and freed herself of this great weight quickly so that it wouldn’t drag her down. This theme was not as applicable to Dimmesdale, however, who decided to hide his wrongful actions and was bearing this secret upon his heart and mind at all times.
Years ago, Hester promised Chillingworth to keep his identity a secret, thus allowing him to do evil to Dimmesdale. Chillingworth believes that it was his fate to change from a kind man to a vengeful fiend. He believes that it’s his destiny to take revenge and thus would not stop until he does so.
As a respected physician, Chillingworth was “a man of skill in all Christian modes of physical science, and li... ... middle of paper ... ... powerful grip over him, dies peacefully, and Chillingworth dies soon after. To plot revenge in any situation is harmful. Chillingworth’s plot of revenge brings the downfall of Dimmesdale, as well as his own.
Dimmesdale, a Puritan minister, has had an affair (which he chose to do) with Chillingworth’s wife and he can’t come to the point where he can confess his sin to the public. Therefore, he is a secret sinner. By being this secret sinner Dimmesdale begins to physically and mentally break down. He begins to emotionally and physically beat himself up, “he whipped himself, starved himself as an act of penance until his knees trembled beneath him, and stayed up all night having long vigils and sometimes having visions” (Hawthorne 96). Dimmesdale’s sin has caught up with him and it is affecting his present along with his future; his secret sin is eating him up. He is beating himself up because he has kept it locked inside of him when he should have openness about his sin. Hester has openness about the sin they committed together, and it is not eating her up like it is eating up Dimmesdale. Not only has Dimmesdale been beating himself up, literally, over hi...
...y, Dimmesdale suffered constantly from corporal afflictions as well as the internal conflict of coping with his actions. After the initial sin, Mr. Dimmesdale lived a life of endless struggle and underwent the most suffering throughout The Scarlet Letter. Dimmesdale allowed his life to become consumed with guilt and the quest to complete a suitable penance, which brought him sorrow, self-hatred, and the demise of his body and spirit. The outward influence of society played a key role in Arthur’s unvarying anguish by providing him with a constant reminder of his sin and hypocrisy and adding to the growing guilt and shame he kept bottled within him. Combinations of his mental, physical, and emotional struggles ultimately lead Mr. Dimmesdale to his untimely death. In the end, the suffering became too great to bear and Mr. Dimmesdale’s was forced him to succumb to it.
Dimmesdale. At first his expression had been calm, meditative, and scholar-like. "Now, there was something ugly and evil in his face, which they [people of the town] had not previously noticed, and which grew still the more obvious to sight the oftener they looked upon him.'; (Chpt. 9, p. 155) While pretending to be Dimmesdale's trusted confidant and physician, Chillingworth is actually slaying him by means of medicine and mental torture.
Throughout the novel Chillingworth becomes an expert of torture. Chillingworth’s torment is so dreadful that he hopes to carry it out and spends a great length of time performing it making it seem like a curse on Dimmesdale “ Never did mortal suffer what this man has suffered. And all, all, in the sight of his worst enemy! He has been conscious of me. He has felt an influence dwelling always upon him like a curse.
Rather than being a healer to Dimmsdale, he strove to destroy him in mind, soul and body. Chillingworth's desire to get revenge is so deeply rooted. " Hadst thou sought the whole earth over," said he, looking darkly at the clergyman, "there was no one place so secret,—no high place nor lowly place, where thou couldst have escaped me,—save on this very scaffold!" Chillingworth tells Dimmsdale that the only place he could escape Chillingworth's revenge is in death. Meanwhile, the only reason Dimmsdale wants revenge so desperately is because he wants his wife back, supposedly
Chillingworth and Dimmesdale stood in the crowd watching her. Chillingworth is incensed over her sinfulness and vows to find out the identity of her partner so that he can have his revenge. is tormented by Chillingworth. As a result, Dimmesdale suffers from failing health as well as from guilt. He tries to confess and cannot find the courage to do it.
Both committed adultery but have suffered in different ways. Hester’s punishment composed of public shaming on the scaffold for all to behold, but afterwards she did not suffer from guilt because she confessed her sin, unlike Dimmesdale, who did not confess, but rather let his sin become the “black secret of his soul” (170), as he hid his vile secret and became described as the “worst of sinners” (170). He leads everyone to believe of his holiness as a minister and conceals the, “Remorseful hypocrite that he was [is]” (171). Hester, a sinner too, however, does not lie about how she lives and therefore, does not suffer a great torment in her soul. While she stays healthy, people begin to see Hester’s Scarlet Letter turn into a different meaning, of able or angel, and they view her in a new light, of how she really lives. Dimmesdale however, becomes sickly and weak after “suffering under bodily disease, and gnawed and tortured by some black trouble of the soul” (167). He hides behind a false mask as he is described as possessing, “Brilliant particles of a halo in the air about his head” (300), and perceived as the most honorable man in New England. People do not see him as truly himself, but rather who he hides
Guiltiness possesses Reverend Dimmesdale. Unlike Hester, Dimmesdale fails to come clean about his sin of fornication until moments before his death. Therefore, he struggles with his guilt throughout the entire book, almost until his death. Hester learns to cope with her scarlet “A,” but Dimmesdale cannot without confessing. When he does not confess, he becomes depressed and self-inflicts punishment on himself by carving an “A” into his chest by his heart, among other actions. In Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Dimmesdale suffers from his sin in the entire story until seconds before his death, when he absolves himself from all guilt.
He leeches onto Dimmesdale's energy at an exponential rate which in turn drained his own energy. “Nothing was more remarkable than the change which took place, almost immediately after Mr. Dimmesdale's death, in the appearance and demeanor of the old man known as Roger Chillingworth. All his strength and energy--all his vital and intellectual force--seemed at once to desert him” (311). Chillingworth has unknowingly caused himself more suffering. So much of his being was devoted to psychologically torturing Dimmesdale that when he died, Chillingworth died too.
When the reader first meets Roger Chillingworth standing watching Hester on the scaffold, he says that he wishes the father could be on the scaffold with her. “‘It irks me, nevertheless, that the partner of her iniquity should not, at least, stand on the scaffold by her side” (46). At this point, Chillingworth wishes that Mr. Dimmesdale was also receiving the sort of shame Hester is being put through. Throughout the first few chapters of the novel, however, Chillingworth’s motives become more and more malicious. By the time Chillingworth meets Hester in her prison cell, he has decided to go after Mr. Dimmesdale’s soul. Chillingworth turns to this goal because Mr. Dimmesdale did not endure Hester’s shame on the scaffold. Had Mr. Dimmesdale chosen to reveal himself at the time of Hester’s shame, he would not have had to endure the pain of Roger Chillingworth’s tortures of his soul.
Chillingworth knows his methods are working to punish him: “but it was with the constant shadow of my presence,... and who had grown to exist only by the perpetual poison of the direst revenge!... A mortal man...has become a fiend for his especial torment (174). Dimmesdale is suffering a significant amount more with Chillingworth’s torment than he alone could. Without Chillingworth, Dimmesdale could forget about his sin, and only
In summary, Hester 's sin is the most mild because it is one of consensual passion. Dimmesdale 's sexual sin is mild as well, as it is one of reciprocated passion. Chillingworth 's sins are the worst, as they are ones of pure hatred and blasphemy. While Hester and Dimmesdale’s sins can be forgiven by his God, yet Chillingworth’s cannot. Thus, he will face both social and religious consequences for his atrocious