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The character analysis of hester pryyn in the scarlet letter
The character analysis of hester pryyn in the scarlet letter
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Recommended: The role of religion in American literature
In the words of Alexander Pope 'To err is human.' Everybody makes mistakes. It is human nature. However, how one deals with the mistake is much more important than the mistake itself. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Dimmesdale and Danforth's sins have similar motives, but the characters have distinctly different methods of sin and resolution. Dimmesdale is a selfish coward. He does not work toward anything substantial. Although he supposedly loves Hester, he refuses to admit that he was her ?fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer? ( Hawthorne, 65). When Pearl asks Dimmesdale to accompany her and her mother when they stand at the scaffold, he refuses for fear of public exposure. He has put Pearl and her mother through a lot, but will not stand along side them during their public shame, even though he is the cause of it. Danforth, like Dimmesdale, is cowardly and selfish. He thinks solely of himself and his position of power as he sends dozens of people to the gallows. He refuses to let the accused have fair trials, denying their requests for legal representation and having a jury of corrupt young girls in charge of sentencing. He does everything he can to keep himself from losing credibility. Both Dimmesdale and Danforth put their careers first. Dimmesdale proves this constantly throughout the book by considering his own career and distinction a higher priority than Hester, the woman who loves him, and his child, who must grow up, corrupt in the eyes of society, like her mother. Danforth cherishes his position above all else. When Parris, fearing for his well-being, asks Danforth to postpone further sentencing, he replies ?There will be no postponement? (Miller 128). He does not want the townspeople to think he is wavering and fears they will begin to doubt the so-called ?good? of what he is doing for the town and its God-fearing citizens. Danforth and Dimmesdale contrast in the way of their sins of commission and omission. Although Dimmesdale does not openly admit his sins until the end of the story, they feed on his conscience, causing him to engage in self-torturing practices. He confuses the destruction and weakening of himself for penance for his sin. Aided by Hester?s angered husband, Dimmesdale weakens himself so much, that he uses the last of his strength in his confession and he dies in Hester?s arms. Danforth suspects he is sending innocent people to their deaths, but through the love of his office, he does not stop his corrupt practices nor attempt to right his wrongs.
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.
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.
Instead of humbling himself in front of everyone in the beginning, he chooses his pride and his position of power over God’s merciful grace. In conclusion, with these arguments, it is indisputable that Dimmesdale experiences more guilt than any other character. He attempts every possible way to circumvent the inevitable.
To the town, Dimmesdale appears to be perfectly righteous and is respected highly; while in reality, he is just as guilty as Hester. The hypocrisy of his character first begins to develop as he denies his own sinfulness
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...
People living in Boston, Massachusetts looked up to and respected Dimmesdale because he was a minister. One of his sins was his inability to publicly acknowledge that he committed adultery with Hester and that he is the father of Pearl, Hester’s daughter. However, adultery was not his biggest sin. His biggest sin is hypocrisy. In chapter ten, he speaks of the concealment of his sins, he says, “It may be that they are kept silent by the very constistution of their nature. Or-can we not suppose it-guilty as they may be, retaining, nevertheless, a zeal for God’s glory and man’s welfare…no evil of the past be redeemed by better service (pg. 137).” While trying to conceal his sins, they take over his conscience and literally confess themselves during his acts of madness.
As a believing Puritan, Dimmesdale saw himself as “predestined'; for damnation. Hawthorne explained how the poor man “kept silent by the very constitution of [his] nature.'; Dimmesdale wanted to be with Hester, but he was weak. Hawthorne spoke about Dimmesdale’s bloody scourge in his closet, and how he beat himself with it. Hawthorne seemed to suggest that Dimmesdale’s “real existence on [earth] was the anguish of his inmost soul.'; Chillingsworth was a leech of evil, and Dimmesdale was his host. Chillingsworth continuously tried to get a confession from Dimmesdale: “No-not to [you]-an earthly physician.'; Chillingsworth sin was by far the greatest, as Dimmesdale stated: “That old man’s revenge has been blacker than my sin. He has violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of the human heart.'; This being the “unpardonable sin.';
...scourse” (77). Dimmesdale as well, was greatly affected by the environment and by what was going on around him. Dimmesdale was accepted by society, but because he was greatly praised for being a “miracle of holiness” (125) he became greatly burdened and guilty. He was in a dilemma of wanting to tell all the townspeople about what he had done, yet he could not due to the fear that was inside of him. This pushed him to punishments in which he inflicted upon himself and always thinking about the incident pushed him to his limits mentally-seeing visions of his dead parents and Hester as they point a condemning finger at him along with judgmental looks in their eyes (127).
...h life because of that. Dimmesdale, on the other hand, faced Puritan torture under Chillingworth for the seven years without benefit of the release of guilt Hester had found by being in the public eye. Dimmesdale's only release from guilt was not the scaffold, but death itself.
Hester realizes what is going on between Dimmesdale and Chillingworth and gains permission from her husband to reveal his true identity to the minister. Dimmesdale is devastated by the news and agrees to flee Boston with Hester and Pearl. He will do anything to escape the hold that Chillingworth has on him. In the end, however, Dimmesdale realizes that he can only be rid of his tormentor by publicly acknowledging his guilt. At the end of the novel, on Election Day, Dimmesdale climbs the scaffold with Hester and Pearl again. This third scaffold scene is in the light of day and before a crowd. With his family at his side, Dimmesdale finally confesses his sin and shows the scarlet "A" on his chest. He then dies peacefully.
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.
“A bloody scourge…rigorously, and until his knees trembled beneath him, as an act of penance.” (Hawthorne, 141) In the Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Minister Dimmesdale starved himself, whipped himself, and tortured himself to get rid of the guilt caused by his sin with Hester Prynne. Hawthorne describes the minister’s guilt as the evil that anchored him down and shows how Dimmesdale tortures himself but can never get rid of it. His guilt came from many things. First was his guilt for committing the crime with Hester Prynne. Second is his guilt for not being with her at the time that she was put upon the scaffold. Last was his guilt from not revealing himself to his own daughter and from having to stay out of her life due to fear of being shamed by the community. Hawthorne’s views on guilt and Dimmesdale are mostly that his guilt controlled his life completely until the very end when the power of the sin and guilt took over to the point where he couldn’t control himself.
That man who Hester loves so deeply, Mr. Dimmesdale also undergoes major changes due the sin he bears. In the beginning of the book we see this man’s weakness and unwillingness to confess sin even as he begs Hester the person he committed his sin with to come forth with her other parties name (p56). As The Scarlet Letter progresses we see Dimmesdale become weaker physically and his religious speeches become even stronger so that his congregation begins to revere him. For a large part of the novel Dimmesdale has been on a downward spiral in terms of mental and physical health thanks to a so-called friend who was issued to take care of Mr. Dimmesdale, then because of a talk with Hester he is revitalized and given the power to do something, which he could not for seven long years. At the end of the novel Dimmesdale is finally able to recognize his family in public and confess his sin before all releasing the sin he held so long hidden in his heart (p218, 219).
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Mr. Dimmesdale’s greatest fear is that the townspeople will find out about his sin of adultery with Hester Prynne. Mr. Dimmesdale fears that his soul could not take the shame of such a disclosure, as he is an important moral figure in society. However, in not confessing his sin to the public, he suffers through the guilt of his sin, a pain which is exacerbated by the tortures of Roger Chillingworth. Though he consistently chooses guilt over shame, Mr. Dimmesdale goes through a much more painful experience than Hester, who endured the public shame of the scarlet letter. Mr. Dimmesdale’s guilt is much more damaging to his soul than any shame that he might have endured.
However, there is a larger consequence which she is reminded of everyday. Hester’s daughter Pearl is the ultimate consequence of her sin. Pearl is the walking image of Hester’s sin and guilt that she has to live with forever. Chillingworth was not satisfied until he completely destroyed his wife’s lover. He wanted revenge so bad and he could not think about anything else until he got what he was looking for. "A quiet depth of malice, hitherto latent, but active now...which led him to imagine a more intimate revenge than any mortal had ever wreaked upon an enemy." (Hawthorne 128) Dimmesdale feels extremely guilty so he punishes himself by going long periods of time without eating or sleeping. He also whips himself on the back causing cuts and bleeding. Dimmesdale is so overcome by his guilt and sin that he tries to hurt himself for everything he has done. "To the untrue man, the whole universe is false, it is impalpable, it shrinks to nothing within his grasp....The only truth that continued to give Mr. Dimmesdale a real existence on this earth was the anguish in his inmost soul." (Hawthorne 134)