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How is sin presented in the scarlet letter
Sin in scarlet letter essay
Sin in scarlet letter essay
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Arthur Dimmesdale has continually suffered because of the sin he has committed. He is tortured by his only friend who is really his enemy. He grows weaker day by day because he will not confess his sin. He starves himself and whips himself. He has a daughter but no one can know. People look up to him and he does not want to let them down. If only people knew that he committed adultery with Hester Prynne. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's, The Scarlet Letter, the author writes, “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 the scarlet token on his naked breast, right over his heart. On that spot, in very truth was, and there had long been, the gnawing and poisonous tooth of bodily pain” (page 139). Nathaniel Hawthorne shows Dimmesdale's struggle with his sin through his relationships with Roger Chillingworth, Hester Prynne, and Pearl and also through the harm he commits on himself.
Arthur Dimmesdale has become friends with his worst enemy though he does not know it until close to the e...
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.
Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale takes the easy way out and does not tell the community that he is the one that committed adultery with Hester Prynne, which led to more pain than he saved. Him and Hester Prynne committed adultery together and as a result of that, they have a daughter, Pearl. Hester is sentenced to the scarlet letter, which is an “A” upon her chest and public humiliation, but the identity of the husband is never discovered. Dimmesdale takes the easy way out and hides the secret. Because of this he is going through great suffering. "Mr. Dimmesdale, conscious that the poison of one morbin spot was infecting ...
Arthur Dimmesdale has many traits and characteristics that make him different from others, even though they change towards the end of the novel. In the beginning, Dimmesdale is “a young clergyman, who had come from one of the great English universities” (55). He is also “a person of very striking aspect, with a white, lofty, and impending brow, large, brown, melancholy eyes” (55). Moreover, Dim...
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...
... him feeble. In the end, he frees himself from his guilt by admitting to everyone his sin. He crumbles under the anxiety of holding his secret inwards revealing Dimmesdale to be a rather weak male protagonist. He also is not strong enough support Hester, to show love towards Hester, or to take his own burden of sin on himself, although he does realize how wrong he is. His inability to outwardly show his sin like Hester proves Hester to be the stronger one which supports the idea that Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is a feminist composition.
Arthur Dimmesdale, a character of high reputation, overwhelmed by guilt, torn apart by his own wrongdoing, makes his entrance into history as the tragic hero whose life becomes a montage of pain and agony because of his mistakes. The themes leading to Dimmesdale’s becoming a tragic hero are his guilt from his sin, and his reluctance to tarnish his reputation in the town. Guilt plays a huge role in defining Dimmesdale as a tragic hero. Dimmesdale has understood that by not revealing his sin, he has doomed himself. This also connects with the constant struggle with Chillingworth. The mysteries of Dimmesdale’s guilty heart entice Chillingworth to delve into his soul and reveal what has been hidden, causing Dimmesdale great pain and suffering. His guilt is taking over, causing him to inflict pain upon himself while also experiencing true and meaningful suffering. Guilt is not the only theme in the novel that help to characterize Dimmesdale as a tragic hero, but reputation and authority in the community also help to characterize him as a tragic hero. Arthur Dimmesdale has a grand reputation and authority in his community, which worsens his downfall. The respect he had from his community makes them hurt worse when they see his decline. His excessive pride makes him ignorant to most, until the end when all things go downhill. He also made a life altering decision of whether to stay and face his guilt, or to run away from his mistakes. Arthur Dimmesdale, from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, is an example of a tragic hero because of the downfall brought about by his guilt and necessity to uphold his authority in the town.
As the novel progresses, it is made apparent to the reader that Dimmesdale is tormented with a “black secret”
In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is set in Puritan New England during the 17th century. The scene in which the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale joins Hester and Pearl on the platform to showcase his sin is one which exemplifies Dimmesdale’s acceptance of his actions. Up until this point in the novel, Dimmesdale had hidden the fact that he had engaged in a sexual affair with Hester, a married woman. During the scene, Dimmesdale, distraught with guilt after seven years of living in secret shame, joins Hester in public to show his actions publicly. He then, being riddled with sickness, dies in contentment. Having finally accepted his actions, Dimmesdale can die without the torturous guilt of living a lie. Dimmesdale’s confession and ensuing downfall show that accepting the consequences of one’s own actions is the only way to truly achieve fulfillment and satisfaction in life, where as hiding one’s actions results in inner torture.
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
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, “The Scarlet Letter”, his use of symbolism, infantile, diction, and misleading details characterize Arthur Dimmesdale and his relationship with Hester Prynne. Hawthorne uses symbolism to reveal the characterization of Arthur Dimmesdale. In chapter three, it says “ (Dimmesdale) with his hand upon his heart”. This gesture can be used to symbolize an illness. In Puritan society, illness was thought to be caused by committing a sin. When Dimmesdale shows himself with his hand over his heart, it represents a deeper illness that has manifested itself inside him. However, he can’t relieve himself from his illness or most likely guilt because he has yet to confess and repent for his sin. This deep guilt manifests itself on Dimmesdale
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
Within The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne attempts to uncover the different methods people use to handle guilt and highlights that guilt may be more destructive than punishment through the contrasting characters of Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne. The two characters commit the same crime of adultery, but chose different methods of handling the guilt; Hester deals with guilt by aiding others, hopes that she will be forgiven, and is overall not ashamed with her past. In contrast, Dimmesdale keeps from confessing and hides the secret for several years, punishing himself by starving and whipping himself, along with suffering insomnia, leading to his poor health and mental torment. The contrast between the two individuals proves that guilt
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.
Guilt is a very strong emotion, and it can take a merciless toll on a person. For most people, guilt is often a short-lived feeling because we confess why we feel guilty and get it off of our chests. However, this is hardly the case for Arthur Dimmesdale, the father of Hester Prynne’s child in the novel The Scarlet Letter. Dimmesdale does not confess that he has committed a sin with Hester, and for a brutal seven whole years, he withholds his guilt inside of him. Throughout all of that time, he reverts to self-punishment in the form of fasting, consecutive, sleepless vigils, and relentless studying of the Bible. The public viewed all of these activities as noble acts of devotion to God, and they only admired him more and more. This public veneration just made him feel like he was even more of a horrible person and that his whole life was based upon a lie. Also, Dimmesdale was faced to live with and be tormented by not only his overwhelming guilt of sin, but was moreover forced to live with Hester’s husband, Roger Chillingworth, who plagued him almost as much as his own conscience. These are all reasons why I believe that Dimmesdale suffers most out of any main character in this novel.
The forest scene is crucial in the narrative of The Scarlet Letter, and a proper understanding of what happens in the forest is necessary for any interpretation of Dimmesdale's last days of life and his final "confession." I will argue in this paper that the reading of the forest scene sketched above is mistaken; that in fact it is Arthur Dimmesdale and not Hester Prynne who is the "activating agent"(4) in the forest, increasing Dimmesdale's culpability for his most serious fall. Previous critics seem to think that Dimmesdale's much-vaunted skill as a speaker abandons him when he enters the forest with Hester, but I will show that Dimmesdale talks Hester into talking him into fleeing, and so Dimmesdale's gravest sin cannot be laid at Hester's feet at all.