Scarlet Letter Reflection

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Everyone has a lesson to learn as he or she develops their character. Whether it is a sorrowful or a jubilant event, people learn things every day, every moment of their life. Then, from one’s own experiences, he or she is able to teach others. Through the Scarlet Letter, the romanticist author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, is someone who provides a lesson to those who have been through a similar situation. This lesson he has taught is that repenting for one’s sins in secret or denying repentance will not help him or her find salvation. By masking everything under a dark veil, one is only going to fall into depression and depravity. Hawthorne’s style of writing portrays a lesson everyone should assimilate. As Hawthorne describes Arthur Dimmesdale’s …show more content…

Hester chooses the optimistic path by leaning towards assisting others. On the other hand, Dimmesdale resolves to self-afflict for redemption. It’s clear that Hawthorne prefers Hester’s idea of repentance because he describes her as a “Sister of Mercy” (152). Meanwhile, Dimmesdale is put through grief. If Hawthorne desires Dimmesdale’s method, then there would be no sorrow and pity in his tone. Hawthorne depicts Dimmesdale’s many failed attempts at confessing in a tone filled with disappointment, “He had striven to put a cheat upon himself by making the avowal of a guilty conscience, but had gained only one other sin, and a self-acknowledged shame, without the momentary relief of being self-deceived. He had spoken the very truth, and transformed it into the veriest falsehood” (136). Hawthorne portrays Dimmesdale as a pitiful man, who only wishes for release from the darkness inside him. However, this wouldn’t have happened if he admitted to his sins the moment Hester endured public ignominy. In these situations, masking the sin only causes a worse conflict that could have been prevented from happening. Hawthorne designates Dimmesdale as the one who elects the bleak path to demonstrate the future of those who walks down the same road. He wants the audience to remember that repentance can be obtained without having to be

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