The Nature of Sin

Most people believe that they are the good guys. Ask any terrorist, thief, or serial killer and they will all blame some other factor or person for their actions. In the age of Puritanism everyone participated in this area of irrational thought, or else they faced the fires of Hell. They had to choose between accepting their sins, projecting their sins onto another, or by fully succumbing to their sins in order to preserve their faith. This is why Hester Prynne is given the scarlet letter, this is why Arthur Dimmesdale laughs hysterically as he scourges himself in the dead of night, and this is why Roger Chillingworth becomes an evil shadow of his formal self. The way that each character chose to deal with their sins revealed their true nature.

Hester Prynne is made the very embodiment of projected sin. As soon as her fellow townspeople see that she is pregnant while her husband is away, they quickly punish her. She is imprisoned and forced to wear a scarlet letter ‘A’ for adultery, on her chest, ensuring that everyone who looks upon her knows her blasphemous mistake. Hester takes the punishment with pride, haughtily decorating the letter with gold trimmings and holding her head up high. This unexpected pride makes her the perfect person for the town to set blame upon, “Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast,—at her, the child of honorable parents,—at her, the mother of a babe, that would hereafter be a woman, —at her, who had once been innocent, —as the figure, the body, the reality of sin.” Pg 63. Normally sin is an intangible evil, but Hester’s letter makes it physical. The town projects their sin and guilt on to Hester to avoid confronting their o...

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...ke Dimmesdale or Hester. Instead Chillingworth decides to embrace his sin and accept it into his very soul. He becomes a man possessed with the desire to do harm to the man who wronged him. This creates the ultimate evil, a person who instead of coping with guilt, he does not feel it at all.

The Scarlet Letter is a book that is all about sin and more importantly how people choose to deal with their sins. Hester is forced to confront her sin head on, Dimmesdale internalizes his sin until it builds up inside him to the point of his eventual death, and finally Chillingworth embraces his sins and the freedom that they give him in order to exact his revenge. Such is the nature of sin; it is at its most powerful when everyone is aware of it. When sin is made public, it has the power to punish as it did with Hester, or to remove a burden as it did with Dimmesdale.