Guilt, a powerful feeling that overwhelms the weak, but manipulates even the best of people. A minister living a lie, a women who committed adultery, and a husband seeking revenge creates Nathaniel Hawthorne's story of The Scarlet Letter. The beloved minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, and the married Hester Prynne are involved in a forbidden relationship. Hester’s pregnancy, with Dimmesdale as the father, forces her to endure the public punishment of the Puritan society. Hester deals only with embarrassment and isolation, while Dimmesdale not owning up to his mistakes creates worse havoc for the minister. Throughout the remainder of the story, Dimmesdale’s physical appearance directly correlates to his remorseful conscience, which supports the theme …show more content…
Dimmesdale wants to confess in order to achieve a clear conscience, but his desire to keep the Puritan people believing in God holds him back. His need to defend himself also leads him to keep the secret of his adulterous sin. Ironically, his physical state diminishes because he tries to protect himself. Dimmesdale’s choice to contain all of his guilt inside brings him great amounts of pain and suffering, more intolerable than Hester’s temporary feelings of isolation. Hester’s life proceeds to get better once the people have time to process her sin. Dimmesdale wants to do the right thing, but protecting the church and his reputation proves far more important to him than his own …show more content…
He begins to scourge himself, and he also begins to deprive himself of food and water. Dimmesdale chooses to fast just as other Puritans had done before him, “...in order to purify the body...,” but the way he goes about fasting proves to be for a completely different reason, “...rigorously, and until his knees trembled beneath him, as an act of penance” (135). Dimmesdale does not fast for the same reasons the Puritan people do. If he had confessed his sin years before, the Puritans would not have forced him to starve himself the way he does. Hester endures public embarrassment from the Puritans but never physical pain. Dimmesdale causes the majority of his pain onto himself by not telling the people of the community the truth about the relationship between him and
Consequently enough, Dimmesdale is trying to convince Hester to reveal the man who has sinned along with her, so the man can be relieved of his guilt, somewhat ironic because he is the man who has sinned along side with her. "What can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him--yea, compel him, as it were--to add hypocrisy to sin? Heaven hath granted thee an open ignominy, that thereby thou mayest work out an open triumph over the evil within thee and the sorrow without.
Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne attempted to expose the varying ways in which different people deal with lingering guilt from sins they have perpetrated. The contrasting characters of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale ideally exemplified the differences in thought and behavior people have for guilt. Although they were both guilty of committing the same crime, these two individuals differed in that one punished themselves with physical and mental torture and the other chose to continue on with their life, devoting it to those less fortunate than they.
When Dimmesdale tried to confess his sin to his congregation, they saw the confession as if it were part of his sermon. “He had spoken the very truth, and transformed it into the veriest falsehood”. (Hawthorne 171) Instead of correcting their assumption, Dimmesdale went along with it, once more hiding his sinfulness. When Dimmesdale finally confessed his sin openly to the public with no doubt of his guilt, it was upon the spot where Hester served her punishment for their crime....
In The Scarlet Letter, the main characters Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth, and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale are tangled in a web of deceit, which is the result of a sin as deadly as the Grimm Reaper himself: adultery. Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, describes the feeling of deceit using the main characters; for each of the cast the reaction to the deceit is different, thus the reader realizes the way a person reacts to a feeling differs between each character.
“And be the stern and sad truth spoken, that the breach which guilt has once made into the human soul is never, in this mortal state, repaired” (158). Arthur Dimmesdale confesses his sin, but it makes such a big impact on him that he will always be reminded of it. The sin leaves a “breach,” or a hole, in him which cannot be fixed. Living in a Puritan community also makes it that much harder for Dimmesdale to keep his secret. Since the religion is completely strict and absolutely prohibits sins like adultery, he has no choice but to feel guilt and regret. The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a novel of gothic romanticism. It was written in the 1800s, but takes place in the 17th century. Hester Prynne lives in Boston, Massachusetts and commits adultery with Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. She is punished by the town and has to wear a beautifully embroidered scarlet “A” on all of her clothes, which stands for “Adulterer.” The Reverend keeps his secret for many years while Hester’s husband, Roger Chillngworth, comes back to town and seeks revenge. Reverend Dimmesdale confesses his sin and ends up dying. The character Arthur Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter is a dynamic character because in the beginning of the novel he is a healthy and intelligent minister, but towards the end, he becomes very guilty and emaciated.
The characters Hawthorne develops are deep, unique, and difficult to genuinely understand. Young, tall, and beautiful Hester Prynne is the central protagonist of this story. Shamefully, strong-willed and independent Hester is the bearer of the scarlet letter. Burning with emotion, she longs for an escape from her mark, yet simultaneously, she refuses to seem defeated by society’s punishment. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale claims the secondary role in The Scarlet Letter; he is secretly Hester’s partner in adultery. Conflicted and grieved over his undisclosed act, he drives himself to physical and mental sickness. He fervently desires Hester, but should he risk his godly reputation by revealing the truth? Dimmesdale burns like Hester. Pearl, the child produced in Hester and Dimmesdale’s sin, is the third main character. She is fiery, passionate, perceiving, and strikingly symbolic; at one point in the novel she is referred to as “the scarlet letter endowed with life!” Inevitably, Pearl is consumed with questions about herself, her mother, and Dimmesdale. The reader follows Pearl as she discovers the truth. Altogether, Hawthorne’s use of intricately complex, conflicted ch...
The sins that Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth committed had consequences on their life. Hester’s sin, adultery, caused her to be outcast in the Puritan community and caused her to live constantly in persecution of others in her village as seen in the quote “...little Puritans… got a vague idea of something outlandish, unearthly, or at variance with ordinary fashion, in the mother and child, and therefore scorned them in their hearts, and not infrequently reviled them with their tongues” (Page 141, Hawthorn). Dimmesdale's sin, adultery, affected his ability to lift his life by causing him to be constantly ill as seen in the quote “It be the Soul’s disease” (Page 205, Hawthorn). Chillingworth sin, revenge, this controlled his life and everything he did causing him to become the ministers physician as shown in the quote “If that has not avenged me, I can do no
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is a study of the effects of sin on the hearts and minds of the main characters, Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth. Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth. Sin strengthens Hester, humanizes Dimmesdale, and turns Chillingworth into a demon.
Hester Prynne’s transgression against God proved so vile not a soul around found within themselves a way to act civil to her. For years she endured public damnation, ridicule, and scorn over her adultery.
Dimmesdale is internally affected by shame because nobody else is aware of his secret, which eats at him every waking moment of his life. One example of this is the unhealthy extents he goes to when fasting, and the physical toll this takes on his body. Although many Puritans fast, Dimmesdale took it to a new level when using it as self-punishment for his actions, and “it was his custom…to fast…but rigorously, and until his knees trembled beneath him, as an act of penance,” (132). Also, Dimmesdale would frequently perform vigils, which Hawthorne describes as “constant introspection wherewith he tortured, but could not purify, himself,” (132). After committing adultery with Hester, Dimmesdale takes it upon himself to decide the punishment, since nobody else is aware of his crime, which causes him to abuse himself to great extents. Hence, Dimmesdale’s shame is not a fit consequence that teaches him a lesson, rather it physically damages and even tortures him, almost resulting in his death. Another effect of the shame that impacts Dimmesdale is the toll it takes on his mental state. He no longer feels fit to control his congregation, saying he should have “thrown off these garments of mock holiness,” revealing that he thinks he is not worthy of the pious position (173). Additionally, he
In the puritan society one is judged by what someone has done in the past or their role in society. Both Hester and Dimmesdale are judged by whom the puritan people think they are. For Hester, the first thing they do when they see her emerge from the doors of the jail is judge her by her looks. For instance the author explained her as, "...tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which ,beside being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion was ladylike, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterized by a certain state and dignity" (Hawthorne 46). The women who judge her are viewed as gossipers and judging from jealousy and just out to hurt her. Hester never acts this way towards anyone and she is still viewed as a terrible sinner who should possible die because of a sin. Dimmesdale is viewed as a wise man, a great speaker, and someone to look up to. This is because he is the minister of the community which is highly respected in the puritan society. People viewed him with so much respect that when Dimmesdale admitted his crime, no one could believe it or even believed what they had seen. There were multiple thoughts of what had happened. By way of illustration, “...and the wonderful
...d the sinful act of adultery with his wife. His logic and reason guide him to his answer but his drive to know eventually weakens and kills him. Reverend Dimmesdale strayed from his Puritan beliefs when he committed adultery. His struggle is not with Reason or Romanticism but with his steadfast adherence to the Puritan beliefs. Dimmesdale does not find reason within himself for his relationship with Hester nor does he reveal the truth about his sinful relationship until he realizes he is dying. Nevertheless, this last attempt to clear his conscience results in his death.
Arthur Dimmesdale was involved in the adulterous act along with Hester Prynne. One fact that makes this event more criminal for him is that Dimmesdale is a minister. Another reason for Dimmesdale's acts to be more shameful than Hester's is that she confessed and served the punishment for her crime. While Hester was on the scaffold, Dimmesdale expresses that he does not have the courage to admit his sin and sacrifice his good name. However, when Dimmesdale says "who, perchance, hath not the courage to grasp it for himself--the bitter, but wholesome, cup that is now presented to thy lips" he is inviting Hester to confess Dimmesdale's involvement with her to the townspeople with the explanation that it will be a bitter but wholesome relief to the both of them. Although Dimmesdale was tortured by his conscience for his wrongdoings, he did not publicly admit his guilt until seven years later on.
The Reverend Dimmesdale was another character that demonstrated the effects of sin. He committed the same offense that Hester committed, adultery. The difference between Dimmesdale and Hester was that Dimmesdale was not publicly punished for his crime while Hester was. Because of this, Dimmesdale felt extremely guilty. This feeling of guilt was so atrocious that it mentally and physically withered Dimmesdale, as he felt a very strong need to repent and cleanse his soul.
...y of her husband a secret from Dimmesdale. After being told the truth about Chillingworth, Dimmesdale screams, "Let God punish! Thou shalt forgive!" Dimmesdale goes on to tell Hester that she seduced him and that she is the devil for doing so. After all the accusations thrown at her, she still loves Dimmesdale, and he soon forgives her. Hester could start a new life elsewhere, without ridicule, without Dimmesdale, without Chillingworth, and without her scarlet letter.