Scarlet Letter
Question: How does sin affect the human condition in The Scarlet Letter? How does sin result in knowledge? 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
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The Black Man is the representation for Satan and sin. The “A” on Hester’s chest was thought to be the mark of the Black Man, and young Pearl seems to peak interest in him. Characters like Dimmesdale, Chillingworth and Hester all seem to have been given a connection to the Black Man. The Black Man represents sin, and contrasts the bad from the good in humans. Humans are questioned on their abilities to be good, and the Black Man is the “Satan” that lives within people. The Black Man is a worthy talking point because without that symbolism, sin would not have been a questionable topic. Humans would have only been seen as a decent race with no consequence of sin. The Black Man is considered consequence for humans, and points the fact that no one can escape punishment. The Black Man keeps a book, and writes sinners name in that said book. The Black Man not only debates the topic on whether or not humans are good and evil, but debates the topic of whether or not people choose to be evil. Chillingworth is proof that sometimes people have bad intentions, with no intention of being good and giving forgiveness. Chillingworth was compared to the Black Man a good sum of the book, seeing he resembles Satan due to their evil intentions. The Black Man is the symbol of Satan and sin, and is a key component to the
The first theme expressed in The Scarlet Letter is that even well meaning deceptions and secrets can lead to destruction. Dimmesdale is a prime example of this; he meant well by concealing his secret relationship with Hester, however, keeping it bound up was deteriorating his health. Over the course of the book this fact is made to stand out by Dimmesdale’s changing appearance. Over the course of the novel Dimmesdale becomes more pale, and emaciated. Hester prevents herself from suffer the same fate. She is open about her sin but stays loyal to her lover by not telling who is the father of Pearl. Hester matures in the book; becomes a stronger character.
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 ...
In further developing Dimmesdale's character, Hawthorne portrays him as a hypocrite. His outward demeanor deceives the villagers, appearing as a completely holy man. However, before the action of the novel begins, he stumbles into sin, by committing adultery with Hester Pryn...
... 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.
Eventually coming to terms with his societal offense and accepting the love he shares for Hester and the product of his sin, Pearl, Dimmesdale decides to end his torment by revealing himself to society. However, as he relieves himself from the curse cast upon him, his body succumbs to his mental distress and physically weakness, leaving him a freed man as he takes his last breath. Dimmesdale inflicts himself with agony and distress as he chose to have an affair with Hester, but his ultimate downfall resulted because of his fear of social judgement and the consequences for committing such a crime. His choice to hide his dishonorable actions from society worsened his physical and mental health as he lived in constant angst of someone uncovering his scandalous secret and consequently leading to his passing away. As demonstrated by Oedipus and Dimmesdale, it is not one’s crime that leads them into misery; it is the emotional distress and guilt that tortures them and brings upon their greatest
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.
In the book The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne there are many characters who have committed sins. In Puritan community they followed the word of god and banned all sins. These sins in The Scarlet Letter were look as The Black Mans work meaning satans work. The sins committed were harmful and hurtful to people and their souls. Hester and Mr. Dimmesdale committed adultery with bearing a child named Pearl. But Roger Chillingworth committed the worst sin by using his gifts for evil.
Some say to sin is to go to hell, some say sin is a scourge of human nature, some say sin must be confessed, and some say sin must be forced out of people through punishment. The internal consequences of believing one has sinned are more intangible than social attitudes toward sin, but they appear just as often and in just as many different ways. The novel The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, exudes sin. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses symbolism to demonstrate the effects of sin not only on public reputation, but also on one’s psychological state. The Scarlet Letter A, which Hester Prynne wears on her chest as punishment for adultery, causes her anguish through ignominy but allows her to improve over time through the public nature of her disgrace. Chillingworth, the leech, punishes Reverend Dimmesdale for his concealed sin, and yet at the same time wastes away due to his own sin of sucking the life out of Dimmesdale. Pearl, the illegitimate child of Hester and Dimmesdale, embodies both the open and the concealed sin of her parents. She is unable to be normal because of this and takes on wild and elf-like qualities.
4. The Scarlet Letter was written and published in 1850. The novel was a product of the Transcendentalist and Romantic period.
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross once said, “Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.” This quote truly captures Dimmesdale’s death and journey to death, it is guilt that drives him to the grave and it accompanies him throughout all five grieving stages. Dimmesdale is one of many characters in The Scarlet Letter that is faced with problems both personally and spiritually. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a romantic novel about a young woman, Hester Prynne, who is permanently marked with her sin by a scarlet A she must bare on her chest and also by her daughter Pearl. Hester committed adultery with the young minister of Boston, Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester, and her beloved child Pearl, learn to over come the A and change the meaning of it from adulterer to able, while they are changing the way society views them, Dimmesdale is withering away under the “care” of Rodger Chillingworth, Hester’s past husband. Chillingworth knows about the sin and seeks revenge on Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale is helpless and in a downward spiral. He let the sin become who he is, even though the towns people don’t know of his adultery until his dying breath. The Scarlet Letter is a story about overcoming the darkness that hangs above you and stepping out of the sin or gloom that controls you. For characters like Hester this is a fairly easy thing to handle, but on the flip side characters like Dimmesdale struggle and can not seem to escape their heinous acts and don’t find peace of mind until they die. The Scarlet Letter mainly focuses on the process of overcoming these troubling times and how each individual character handles the pressure, stress, and guilt that come along with it differently. Arthur Dimmesdale is a lost soul after his sin, he expe...
In the novel The Scarlet Letter and the short story “The Minister’s Black Veil”, Nathaniel Hawthorne incorporates romantic elements, such as beauty, truth, innocence, and sin, in his criticism of Puritan societies. In both texts, Hawthorne argues that all people, even those in strictly religious societies with corrupted standards, are capable of sin. Hawthorne uses symbolism and light and dark imagery to convey his argument.
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
“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.
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.
Hester and Dimmesdale both bear a scarlet letter but the way they handle it is different. Hester’s scarlet letter is a piece of clothing, the “SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom” (Hawthorn 51). Dimmesdale on the other hand, has a scarlet letter carved in his chest. This is revealed when Dimmesdale was giving his revelation, in which “he tore away the ministerial band from before his breast. It was revealed!” (Hawthorn 232). Since the Scarlet Letter on Hester is visible to the public, she was criticized and looked down on. “This women has brought same upon us all, and ought to die” (Hawthorn 49) is said by a female in the market place talking about Hester. She becomes a stronger person through living this hard life. Dimmesdale instead has to live “a life of cowardly and selfish meanness, that added tenfold disgrace and ignominy to his original crime” (Loring 185). He becomes weaker and weaker by time, “neither growing wiser nor stronger, but, day after day, paler and paler, more and more abject” (Loring 186). Their courage is also weak.