In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a young, beautiful woman named Hester Prynne committed adultery and had a child. The town did not know who the father was and Hester would not give up her secret. As her punishment, she had to stand on the town scaffold for a day facing the public. In addition, she had to display a scarlet letter “A” upon her bosom. Hester was considered an outcast by the town. The father was a man named Arthur Dimmesdale, he swore that he would only tell the public that he was the father on the day that he died, and he did. Arthur Dimmesdale was the best and most loved Puritan preacher. Dimmesdale’s “eloquence and religious fervor had already given the earnest if high eminence in his profession (Hawthorne, 59).” …show more content…
Dimmesdale led people to believe that he was disheartened by the crime in his congregation. Her punishment, an embroidered scarlet letter, was far better than the townspeople wished upon her (death) but Dimmesdale’s punishment was far worse. Dimmesdale had kept his secret to himself for more than seven years, and it began to affect his mental health. He whipped himself and fasted because the guilt of not telling his secret got to him. Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s husband, moved in with Dimmesdale and started to torture him. Chillingworth finds something (most likely a branded “A”) on Dimmesdale’s chest while he was sleeping, which shocks him. Dimmesdale has an internal conflict on whether or not he should give up his secret. In Chapter 10, Dimmesdale and Chillingworth discuss how they feel about sin. Dimmesdale says that “The heart, making itself guilty of such secrets, must perforce hold them, until the day when all hidden things shall be revealed (Hawthorne, 121).” If Dimmesdale had owned up to his secret, he never would have gone through all of the shame and sorrow that he now faces, he would have a relationship with Hester and Pearl, and he would not have to worry about people finding out his secret Dimmesdale was suffering internally where Hester is suffering externally through public …show more content…
Organized religion is a structured system of faith or worship, especially followed by a large number of people. The Puritan faith had many rules and regulations, and an entire settlement followed it. Puritans wanted to purify the church through strict rules, hence the name Puritan. The Puritans in the story are harsh and follow all of the church’s teachings. The sole purpose of women in the Puritan society was to cook, clean, and make children. This was shown when Hester was isolated because she did not have a man in her life. Hester seems to want nothing to do with men until Dimmesdale asks her to run away with him in the forest. Since childhood Hester had been assimilated to the idea that all women need a man in their life, even if she does not believe it. Since Puritans believe in purity, when Hester had a child with another man, the town was furious. They wanted to kill her for her heinous crime, but because she had a child, they did not. Dimmesdale, the town’s preacher, was supposed to be a role model for the town. He did not want to give up his secret in fear of the town. Organized religions commonly have shady things going on behind the scenes and Dimmesdale was a prime example. Everyone’s belief system comes from their surroundings and Hawthorne portrays this
Life is unpredictable, and through trial and error humanity learns how to respond to conflicts and learns how to benefit from mistakes. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is a character who changes and gains knowledge from the trials he faces, but first he has to go through physical, spiritual, and emotional agony. In the midst of all the havoc, the young theologian is contaminated with evil but fortunately his character develops from fragile to powerful, and the transformation Dimmesdale undergoes contributes to the plot’s climax.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, tells the story of a young adulteress named Hester Prynne and her bastard daughter, Pearl, as they endure their residence in a small town of the Massachusetts British settlement in the1600s. Pearl’s illegitimate birth is the result of the relationship between Hester Prynne and a minister of the Puritan church, Arthur Dimmesdale. Through public defamation and a perpetual embroidery of an “A” upon her dress, Hester is punished for her crime. Whereas, Arthur choses to suppress the secret over illuminating the truth and endures internal and self-inflicted punishment as consequence.
Through the characters Dimmesdale and Chillingworth, Hawthorne reveals the true nature of Puritan society through parallels among the three. All three’s hidden evil is masked by each of their perfect appearances. Chillingworth exhibited the Puritan’s benefit of the doubt they received because of their relation to religion, while Dimmesdale presented the fact that corruption fuels the association with religion and as corruption within someone or something increases, so does a person or people’s betterment.
Arthur Dimmesdale’s house not only contained his own secrets, but also accommodated Roger Chillingworth’s as well. It was from their residence together that the detrimental repercussion of their enigmas appear; thus relating in the key point: secrets destroyed the keeper. The first indication of this correspondence was Dimmesdale’s developed illness. Withholding the reality of his position as the father of Hester’s child from the town for status purposes had begun to physically dismantle him, literally from the inside out. For example, “‘I need no
In choosing to contain his deep sin as a secret, Mr. Dimmesdale suffered from a festering guilt that plagued him until his death. After Hester was sentenced with the punishment for her act of adultery, Mr. Dimmesdale remained silent in refusal to confess to his inclusion in the sin. Over time, feelings of remorse gnawed at Mr. Dimmesdale’s conscience and left him in a self loathing state for his own hypocrisy. Dimmesdale felt excessive guilt in allowing Hester to undergo the entirety of the ridicule and punishment alone while he maintained a positioned of respected and idolized authority, yet could not find it in his heart to expose the sin. Looking upon his situation with the Puritan perspective, Mr. Dimmesdale “…loved the truth and loathed the lie, as few men ever did. Therefore above all things else, he loathed his miserable self” (136). Mr. Dimmesdale felt he was living a lie for he, the very man who preached to the community about living a pure life, was living one tainted with...
The Scarlet Letter is a classic novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne which entangles the lives of two characters Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale together through an unpardonable sin-adultery. With two different lifestyles, this act of adultery affects each of them differently. Hester is an average female citizen who is married to a Roger Chillingworth from Europe while Dimmesdale is a Puritan minister from England (61). Along the course of time after the act of adultery had happened, Hester could not hide the fact that she was bearing a child that was not of her husband, but from another man. She never reveals that this man is in fact Arthur Dimmesdale, and so only she receives the punishment of prison. Although it is Hester who receives the condemnation and punishment from the townspeople and officials, Dimmesdale is also punished by his conscience as he lives his life with the secret burden hanging between him and Hester.
Ironically, the community views him as a saint, however, Dimmesdale sees a sinner within himself. His suffering reaches new heights every time the sun rises and every time the sun sets. Dimmesdale’s heart aches from dealing with his secret in isolation for such a long period of time. Hawthorne describes the reverend’s trauma by revealing that “[i]t is inconceivable, the agony with which this public veneration torture[s] [Dimmesdale]” (131). Notably, Hawthorne develops Dimmesdale’s character through interesting word choice such as “inconceivable” and “agony”. In addition, he forwardly explains the extent to which his secret has controlled Dimmesdale’s feelings. Furthermore, Dimmesdale’s inability to confess his sin to the Puritan community frustrates and, in time, overcomes him. Dimmesdale’s capacity to comfort sinners heightens the parishioners’ adulation for him. Bereft of the capability to see the truth, the townspeople’s holy opinions of Dimmesdale obscure their views. In immeasurable helplessness, Dimmesdale dreams of revealing himself as “…the worst of sinners, an abomination, a thing of unimaginable inequity…” (132). Specifically, Hawthorne’s presentation of Dimmesdale’s thoughts showcases the reverend’s self-hatred and guilt. Even as Dimmesdale tries to express that he does not embody a saint, the people of Boston only become fonder of him. Overall,
Author Nathaniel Hawthorne heavily relies upon the natural world to express certain themes through The Scarlet Letter, but makes it almost human-like when interacting with “sinful characters” such as main protagonist Hester Prynne and her very close friend Arthur Dimmesdale, in comparison to their “innocent” daughter Pearl Prynne. Hester Prynne is known throughout her town as the “adulteress” through the piercing scarlet letter “A” upon her bosom. Thinking her husband was dead, Hester became intimate with one of the town’s men and gave birth to her daughter Pearl. The town shunned her and made her the highest symbol of sin in their community for years and years to come. As time progressed, it became known to the public that Arthur Dimmesdale, the
Dimmesdale fights an internal conflict that takes over his body through guilt. Dimmesdale was the mysterious man who had committed adultery with Hester Prynne, the woman with the scarlet letter. Dimmesdale’s sin was not only committing adultery, but lying to the whole town and leading them to think he was still the pure man who followed all of God’s rules. Dimmesdale throughout the book has serious heartaches, which is the result of the guilt within in his sin. The power of sin caused Dimmesdale to gain physical pain, a connection between his sin and the human condition. Dimmesdale pain gets more powerful throughout
He can preach the consequences of sin very well, but when it comes to facing his own sins, he cannot deal with them. Chillingworth notices this and articulates to Hester that “His spirit lacked the strength that he could have borne up, as thine has been, beneath a burden like thy scarlet letter,” (135). At the conclusion of the novel, when Dimmesdale finally recognizes that death is upon him, he admits the truth. He proclaims, “In the name of him, so terrible and so merciful, who gives me grace at this last moment, to do what – for my own heavy sin and miserable agony – I have withheld myself from doing seven years ago, come hither now, and twine thy strength about me! Thy strength, Hester; but let it be guided by the will which God has granted me! This wretched in wronged old man is opposing it with all his might! – With all his own might, and the fiend’s! Come, Hester, come! Support me up yonder scaffold!"(226). At just about the last possible second, in the third scaffold scene, Dimmesdale admits upon the scaffold that he is the father of
Dimmesdale illustrates himself as a hypocritical-clergymen, too cowardly to share the blame for his sin, while Chillingworth expresses his need for honour and respect along with his search for vengeance against who will soon find out to be Dimmesdale. Both men fell for Hester’s beauty; Chillingworth had a loveless marriage with her but suffered a loss of dignity when Dimmesdale fell for love and had an affair. They both regard the source of their issue with Hester, as revealed later on in the novel, but the main difference between the two is how the cope with their “pain.” Dimmesdale refuses to share the shame with Hester and become highly hypocritical and cowardly when questions Hester, and wants her to reveal his sin. On the other hand, Chillingworth changes his identity and, like Dimmesdale hides his secret that would only lead to shame, but he seeks revenge against Dimmesdale. Their journey began on the same path, but a shared incident separated their lines, but soon enough the ended at the same place; both men die in the
In “The Scarlet Letter,” the main character Hester get punished for adultery. In the beginning, she thought that her husband has died so she fell in love with Dimmesdale. However, her husband did not die and came back. Her husband, Chillingworth, later finds out that Hester has a secret lover. Therefore tried to find out who he is. At first Chillingworth does not reveal himself as Hester’s husband because she was being punished for adultery and he did not want to be ashamed. Later he tries to find out Hester’s secret lover by asking her but she will not tell him which makes him for desperate and angry. When he finds out that the secret lover is Dimmesdale, he finds out a secret about Dimmesdale.
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
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.
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).