Change is something everyone is subject to based on their environment. We see change, positive or negative, over time in all of our main adult characters with their relationship to the sin the scarlet A represents. In some characters we see a positive and beneficial to personality and in others we see destructive and harmful change. In Amanda L. Chan’s article,”Personality Can Change Over Time, Study Suggests”, she suggests that,”the personalities of the people in the study changed just as much as the other outside factors over the four years, and the changes in personality were able to predict whether the study participants’ life satisfaction also changed”. Hawthorn’s,”The Scarlet Letter” supports this idea that personality changes over time. …show more content…
All throughout the book, Hester makes significant changes to her character as she accepts her sin, both physical change and mental. She was once a,”tall, with a figure of perfect elegance… She had dark and abundant hair… and a face which [was] beautiful”(40), she was bold and somewhat brash but through her ignominy, she hides her hair away and her beauty and warmth fades while she displays the scarlet A for all to see. Since the whole community has shunned Hester, she has no friends apart from her daughter, Pearl. She has all the free time in the world to do charity work and help the governor in his final days. At the time of her sin, she was awarded a Scarlet A that represented her adultery, used to shame Hester and ruin her life. The A was meant to be a symbol with one interpretation, that being her sin, but through Hester’s good works and charity it ended up evolving into a sign that, “meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman's strength”(#). Just like how the symbol changes, the townspeople make a change towards Hester. The townspeople are finally looking at the A as a symbol of ability, they saw Hester as an able and strong woman. Opposed to the beginning of the book as they all saw what the A really meant; adultery. Hester dealt with her sin responsibly, she paid the price and properly lived through her ignominy. As a result of her sin, she had Pearl, which is the living embodiment of …show more content…
Dimmesdale is described at the beginning of the book as,”simple and childlike, … with a freshness, and fragrance, and dewy purity of thought, which, as many people said, affected them like the speech of an angel."(#). Dimmesdale is an ordained puritan minister with the voice of an angel, a heart dedicated to serving the lord, and a puritan celebrity. Of course, this is how the public sees him, but deep down inside he is engulfed in his own sin and the psychological torture from Chillingsworth. Unlike Hester, Dimmesdale attempted to give himself the punishment for sin he had partaken in, in private and because of this it was only appropriate that his A was kept on his chest in secret. The longer Dimmesdale waits to confess his sin in public the longer and more severe his self induced sickness gets. Dimmesdale's physical changes in the work reflect his state of being, as it goes from pure to sickly and tainted,”His form grew emaciated; his voice, though still rich and sweet, had a certain melancholy prophecy of decay in it; he was often observed, on any slight alarm or other sudden accident, to put his hand over his heart, with first a flush and then a paleness, indicative of pain”(#). The last moments of his life was the most prominent point in life as he confessed his sin. As soon as he acknowledges his sin and exposes his engraved A, he turns to Pearl and asks,”’Will you kiss me now?’”(#) and she does.
There are situations during the first part of the Scarlet Letter where Hester responds to the community’s power differently. As Hester stood on the scaffold, babe in hand, community officials demanded she “Speak out the name!” (Ch. 3; Pg. 47). Though pressed with legitimate power, Hester refuses and withdraws from answering who the father of the sin-born baby is. The reader already begins to notice the strong spirit of Hester. The characterization of Hester continues to develop throughout this section when she “ … did not flee.” The adulterer’s inner strength to not withdraw is astonishing. Why not leave the people who just judged you and imprisoned you? Hester and Pearl lived “On the outskirts of the town … but not in close vicinity to any other habitation” (Ch. 4; Pg. 55). The mother decided to stay, but still withdrew from the community. Hester begins to do service for the poor as well as make clothing for a community that harshly judged her. She begins to embrace her position in this power imbalance by doing good deeds, and the narrator suggests that “None so ready as she to give of her little substance to every demand of poverty” (Ch. 13; Pg. 110). The view of Hester by the community changes towards the end of the book. Her “A” was now viewed to mean “able.” No longer did it mean it regular interpretation. Hester at first was on the negative spectrum of responses to power, but we see her embrace her position in the community in the third part of the
Dimmesdale is the “wretched minister!” who is tempted by his dream of happiness. This made him yield to what he well knew was a deadly sin. He is a man of faith and it was wrong for him to commit such a sin or leave the town for an evil pursuit. He feels he has dealt his puritan soul to the devil and this makes him have a guilty conscience. He starts changing character and even starts saying things a man of his status would not have said Arthur had been feeling weird since he proposed to Hester, seven years ago. It takes him a completely new light to start feeling free.
In the book The Scarlet Letter, the character Reverend Dimmesdale, a very religious man, committed adultery, which was a sin in the Puritan community. Of course, this sin could not be committed alone. His partner was Hester Prynne. Hester was caught with the sinning only because she had a child named Pearl. Dimmesdale was broken down by Roger Chillinsworth, Hester Prynne’s real husband, and by his own self-guilt. Dimmesdale would later confess his sin and die on the scaffold. Dimmesdale was well known by the community and was looked up to by many religious people. But underneath his religious mask he is actually the worst sinner of them all. His sin was one of the greatest sins in a Puritan community. The sin would eat him alive from the inside out causing him to become weaker and weaker, until he could not stand it anymore. In a last show of strength he announces his sin to the world, but dies soon afterwards. In the beginning Dimmesdale is a weak, reserved man. Because of his sin his health regresses more and more as the book goes on, yet he tries to hide his sin beneath a religious mask. By the end of the book he comes forth and tells the truth, but because he had hidden the sin for so long he is unable to survive. Dimmesdale also adds suspense to the novel to keep the reader more interested in what Reverend Dimmesdale is hiding and his hidden secrets. Therefore Dimmesdale’s sin is the key focus of the book to keep the reader interested. Dimmesdale tries to cover up his sin by preaching to the town and becoming more committed to his preachings, but this only makes him feel guiltier. In the beginning of the story, Dimmesdale is described by these words; “His eloquence and religious fervor had already given earnest of high eminence in his profession.”(Hawthorne,44). This proves that the people of the town looked up to him because he acted very religious and he was the last person that anyone expected to sin. This is the reason that it was so hard for him to come out and tell the people the truth. Dimmesdale often tried to tell the people in a roundabout way when he said “…though he (Dimmesdale) were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life.
Dimmesdale considers the timing fortunate as it aligns with his Election Day sermon and feels that there could not be a more suitable way to end his career as a minister. He thinks to himself, “At least, they shall say of me, that I leave no public duty unperformed, nor ill performed!’” (Hawthorne 146). Up until the moment of his histrionic confession on the scaffold, Dimmesdale acts to maintain his respected reputation in the Puritan society. Even his final confession is a performance before the town. As analyzed by literary critic Terrence Martin, “...in keeping with the brilliant economy of The Scarlet Letter, the moment at which Dimmesdale commits himself consciously to deadly liberating sin becomes the moment at which he secretly wishes to cap his public life with a final burst of eloquence on the most important occasion the Puritan community can offer.” His death is his final act of hypocrisy, as he declares that he stands with them but leaves Hester and Pearl alone again to face society. His confession, like his silence, was a grandiose facade for an act of
Although Hester and Pearl are isolated for a while after their punishment (85), the Puritan society’s view of her changes in chapter 13. In chapter 13, Hester is shown to have become a servant of the community, and, rather than scorning her, the community praises her as holy (134). Even the symbol that embodies her punishment, the scarlet letter A, transforms into a symbol of her holiness, being interpreted by the people as meaning “Able” (134). In chapter 24, the story’s conclusion, Hester mentors young women, furthering the idea that she brings redemption from her sin by using her lessons to help others
In the beginning Hester would try and hide the “A” hoping she would go unnoticed. As time went on she grew tired of hiding who she really was, so she decided to change. Hester decided to no longer hide the “A” but publish it, make it known by embellishing it; making it more broad and noticeable. People looked down on her, but that did not phase Hester, she knew she could not live in fear for what she had done. Hester went on and continued to espouse her “A” by helping others in the village. Hester would help the village by making all kinds of apparel for those with the highest authority to those who were barely surviving on their own. The more Hester would help those in her village, the more confidence she gained in herself. The “A” no longer meant she was an adulteress it grew a
that is displayed on her chest is a reminder of the shame she should feel. However, once Hester removes the A, she also removes the harsh, unbending Puritan social structure, showing that she dispels her sin. While Hester’s beauty is shown through her physical appearance, it also shines through in her ability to redefine the mea...
Throughout the novel Dimmesdale is eaten away by his inner sin so his mental and physical health began to deteriorate. The narrator speaks about Dimmesdale punishing himself for his sin. He says, “In Mr. Dimmesdale’s secret closet, under lock and key, there was a bloody scourge… (he) had plied it on his own shoulders; laughing bitterly at himself the while, and smiting so much the more pitilessly,” (99) Dimmesdale keeps a whip in his closet and whips himself from the guilt and pain of knowing he has a great sin to carry to death. The penance he has shows the immense emotional toll that keeping the sin inside gives him. Another example of Dimmesdale's inner sin affecting him is in chapter 9, where the narrator describes Dimmesdale’s development since the beginning of the novel. He says, “His form grew more emaciated; his voice, though still rich and sweet, had a certain melancholy prophecy of decay in it; he was often observed… to put his hand over his heart, with first a flush and then a paleness, indicative of pain” This shows that Dimmesdale is being effected in even more ways than just physical. His voice is becoming more dark and is decaying, much like his psyche. Dimmesdale had to deal with much larger consequences for hiding away his sin, and it plays a major role at the end of the novel, where Dimmesdale dies after finally confessing his sin. His redeeming is seen only in his
In the talk in the garden between the men of the town and Hester, Dimmesdale makes a speech about why Hester should keep Pearl and raise her. He makes symbolic references to the “‘father’s guilt,’” (Hawthorne 68) and the “‘sinful father,’” (Hawthorne 68) in a way that conceals his important secret, being the father of Pearl, from the other people in the conversation. In this instance of the novel, we see that Dimmesdale is a hypocrite, in the way that he has the will to bash the “unknown father” of Pearl, himself, to make sure the other gentlemen in the conversation such as Chillingworth, Bellingham, and Wilson, will not catch on to his act of sin. Even more, in the third chapter where Pearl accompanies Hester on the scaffold, Dimmesdale states: “‘...though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life.’” (Hawthorne 38). From this excerpt, Dimmesdale shows that he knows the direct feelings of the father of Pearl, and that he would want to join her on the scaffold for his sin, but keeps his feelings a secret from the Puritan community. Finally, the preaching of Dimmesdale throughout the novel about the evils of sin supports his hypocritical character identity. Dimmesdale’s preaching represents the biggest extremity of his hypocrisy. He preaches about how
As soon as Hester stands on the stocks with Pearl for a day without him, Dimmesdale becomes forever haunted from his guilty conscience. He self-inflicts a great deal of harm upon himself both physically and mentally. “And thus, while standing on the scaffold, in this vain show of expiation, Mr. Dimmesdale was overcome with a great horror of mind, as if the universe were gazing at a scarlet token on his naked breast, right over his heart. On that spot, in very truth, there was, and there had long been, the gnawing and poisonous tooth of bodily pain. Without any effort of his will, or power to restrain himself, he shrieked aloud; an outcry that went pealing through the night, and was beaten back from one house to another, and reverberated from the hills in the background; as if a company of devils detecting so much misery and terror in it, had made a plaything of the sound, and were bandying it to and fro” (Hawthorne 128). Dimmesdale comes close to confession many times, but cowardice and self-preservation come into play, affecting his decision. He is unable to summon the power to confess, but instead tortures himself and engraves an “A” by his heart. He quickly realizes that he will not survive long in his current situation.
Authors use character development to show how a person can change. Through a descriptive portrayal of a charter and their development they become real to the reader. A well-developed character stirs up emotions in the reader making for a powerful story. A person can change for better or worse and Nathaniel Hawthorne shows this thru the character development of Hester, Chillingworth, and Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter.
Dimmesdale, however late it occurred, did in fact find courage. Hawthorne kept Dimmesdale "confused." Dimmesdale struggled to find an answer, tossing confession and secrecy back and forth. Dimmesdale ."..longed to speak out..." (132), and confess. Chillingworth knew that Dimmesdale did not have the valor to speak out. Taking this into consideration Dimmesdale pondered the situation and came upon a solution. "And there stood the minister, with his hand over his heart;" (141). This showed true courage, which was not expected of Dimmesdale. Ascending the scaffold and embracing his own punishment, Dimmesdale became himself taking consequences for his actions. Dimmesdale struggled to make peace with Pearl. He knew that all she wanted was attention, which could only be cured by confession. In doing so he took it upon himself to attempt forgiveness. ."..to admit him into the child's kindlier regards-bent forward, and impressed one on her brow.
Hester Prynne the main character of The Scarlet Letter is plagued with the adulteress “A” throughout the novel. Her Puritan society shuns, scorns, and talks negatively about her behind her back and to her face. Aware of society’s lack of acceptance of her sin Hester looks to nature for her own sense of security and freedom. “She had wandered without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness; as vast and as intricate as the untamed Forrest…Her intellect and heart had their home as it were in desert places where it roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods (1440).” The forrest for Hester was freedom from the “A” that society damned upon her. In the forrest she had the ability to take off the “A” and be her natural self. Chapter 18 states, “She undid her clasp that fastened the scarlet letter and taking it from her bosom through it among the withered leaves (1441).” After taking off the letter in her place of freedom she was clean of society’s evil eye against her. “O exquisite relief! She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom (1442).” Hester Prynne’s daughter Pearl also proves the burdens of society can be overcome with the beauty of nature.
Personality is the study of an individual’s unique and relatively stable patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving over time and across situations and it is what distinguishes one individual from another. In the past changes in personality were thought to have only occurred in the developmental stages of childhood and solidifies in adolescence. After the teenage years it was thought to be set like plaster or the change seen to be inconsequential or absent( Srivastava, John, Gosling, and Potter, 2003). However, recent studies have suggested that changes in personality traits continue to occur throughout an individual’s lifespan due to multiple reasons.
Of life. My research question is that do people personality change as they age? I think the