Preview

Arthur Dimmesdale Quotes

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
404 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Arthur Dimmesdale Quotes
The quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book The Scarlet Letter, “No man, for any considerable length of time, can wear one face to the multitude and another to himself without finally becoming confused as to which is true” (p.170) can be seen throughout the whole novel.
The first example is Arthur Dimmesdale. He has to keep the secret that he is Pearl’s father. To the whole town, Dimmesdale is known as being a great minister, but in this mind he was really a sinner. By having this battle going on in his head Dimmesdale became weak. Hawthorne explains this by saying "his spirit lacked the strength that could have borne up, as thine has been, beneath a burden like thy scarlet letter" (p.124). Because Dimmesdale was so confused by the two different
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Arthur Dimmesdale's Guilt Quotes
    • 1375 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Arthur Dimmesdale's Guilt Quotes

    Arthur Dimmesdale is the pastor of this small puritan town, who has a secret affair with this girl named Hester Prynne. Hester gets pregnant and is publicly shamed in front of everyone in the town. Dimmesdale decides not to come out and tell everyone that he is her lover, by not doing this Dimmesdale causes himself great emotional pain. Most people just inferred that Dimmesdale would never do anything like this and didn't even think to question him. Unlike Ms. Prynne who confronts her guilt and shame early on in the story, Dimmesdale holds onto his guilt secretly until he finally goes through a process of, at first blaming Hester, then realizing that it wasn't all her fault, to having such strong guilt that he starts hurting himself, to doubting that he will ever get better, after which he comes out and shows everyone his scarlet letter, this…

    • 1375 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Arthur Dimmesdale's Response To Scarlet Letter
    • 231 Words
    • 1 Page

    Arthur Dimmesdale's Response To Scarlet Letter

    The section in which Dimmesdale stood on the scaffold with Hester and Pearl impressed me the most. He conquered his fear and pride, and, as clearly as he could, confessed his crime. He recognized that though he had done an immense amount of penance, of good works, they could not atone for his sin. Only to “show himself to mankind as they would see him at the judgment-seat” would be the true act of penitence.…

    • 231 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Anthony Swafford Jarhead Quotes
    • 1385 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Anthony Swafford Jarhead Quotes

    "Yes the motherfucker looks so deadly it makes me giggle and blush." (155) Weapons play an important role in war. Not only do they protect and kill, but they provide a feeling of comfort to a soldier because the soldiers are in control of their weapons. During the Gulf War in Iraq, soldiers were excited by their deadly weapons as described in the pervious quote. In the book Jarhead, a memoir by Anthony Swafford, soldiers have intense relationships with their weapons. Swafford constantly describes the many guns he carries, the process of cleaning his weapons and how they use them. Swafford's fear of dying triggers his obsession with weapons because they are the only aspect of the war he can control to stay alive. Even after the war is…

    • 1385 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Dimmesdale's Body And Soul In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne
    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Dimmesdale's Body And Soul In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

    Dimmesdale’s self-hatred and inability to confess drive him to the practice of flogging himself, fasting and keeping vigils, all of which weaken his body. Describing the self-abuse, Hawthorne writes, “In Mr. Dimmesdale’s secret closet, under lock and key, there was a bloody scourge. Oftentimes this protestant and Puritan divine had plied it on his own shoulders… but could not purify himself” (90-100). The deterioration of the minister’s health certainly must be due, at least in part, to open sores caused by self-flagellation, to starvation, and to sleep…

    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Similarities Between The Scarlet Letter And The Crucible
    • 1142 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Similarities Between The Scarlet Letter And The Crucible

    The pain Dimmesdale went through was clearly depicted in the book and it was obvious that he was getting weaker gradually. Danforth, however, suffered mostly mentally because he had to bear with the decisions he made. Dimmesdale, a God's man and the minister of the town committed a sin. Because he could not confess his wrongdoings, he was forced to punish himself. "In Mr. Dimmesdale's secret closet, under lock and key, there was a bloody scourge." (Hawthorne 141) From this quote it is clear that Dimmesdale tortured himself. He felt guilty for breaking God's law therefore he punished himself causing deterioration in his physical and spiritual condition. As the book progressed, Dimmesdale became weaker. If he did not feel so strongly about God, he would not feel guilty for what he did with Hester and would definitely not harm himself physically. Similar to Dimmesdale, Danforth was also eaten away by his guilt. During the witch-hunt, most of those that were accused were condemned by Danforth. He interpreted laws strictly based on the Bible, however when he realized that those who were condemned were actually innocent, it was too late for him to take back his…

    • 1142 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Arthur Dimmesdale's Sin
    • 489 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Arthur Dimmesdale's Sin

    Sin was brought into the world by evil itself, destroying God’s perfect plan. Since then sin has grown to its highest. Committing a sin is considered to be unholy. Puritans were one of the most strict groups to obey and follow God’s plan. In the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorn, many characters struggle to carry the burden of sin on their backs. Arthur Dimmesdale, a Puritan minister, struggled the greatest with his sin which eventually led to his death. Dimmesdale’s sin was the greatest because he sinned against God and the Church but he also sinned against Hester Prynne and Roger Chillingworth.…

    • 489 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Spheres in Scarlet Letter
    • 1616 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Spheres in Scarlet Letter

    It was once said that “the only living societies are those which are animated by inequality and injustice.” A man named Paul Claudel wrote this in his work, Conversations dans le Loir-et-Cher, and he criticizes the ability to have a functional society. Societies are meant to organize the values of people into a system with uniform laws and expectations; however, societies can never fully achieve this. Claudel only sees societies with dysfunctional characteristics like inequality and injustice. There are always exceptions to the social order because all people are individuals with different life experiences that help define who they are. Nathaniel Hawthorne also criticizes the Utopian ideals that societies often hold in his novel, The Scarlet Letter. The main character, Hester goes astray from the rules of her Puritan town and must wear a scarlet letter on her chest to declare her sin. The scarlet letter isolates Hester from the pressures to conform to society, giving her the opportunity to find her individualistic moral perspective in life and she shares this revelation with Dimmesdale. Hawthorne conveys this concept of individualism through the motif of spheres.…

    • 1616 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Essay Scarlet Letter Rhetorical Analysis
    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Essay Scarlet Letter Rhetorical Analysis

    This passage personifies cowardice as the “sister and closely linked companion” of remorse, showing how being remorseful can result in being afraid as well. Hawthorne personifies cowardice in order to give a more vivid image on Dimmesdale’s conflicts within his mind. Also, the selection compares the minister’s suffering as an “inextricable knot.” This explains how one’s guilt results in an everlasting cycle of pain.…

    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Prynne And Dimmesdale's Downfall
    • 778 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Prynne And Dimmesdale's Downfall

    In Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter", the quote "No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true." stands true in many forms. Both Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, prominent characters in the novel, convey this two-faced nature in the countenance of an overbearing Puritan society. It is this inner conflict, existing within all humans, that eventually brings about the downfall of these characters and to a large degree sheds light upon the human condition.…

    • 778 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Multiple Common Themes In Speak And The Scarlet Letter
    • 77 Words
    • 1 Page

    Multiple Common Themes In Speak And The Scarlet Letter

    “Open my book & peel the layers of my skin...don't judge me by my cover 'cause there's much more within” (Anonymous). This anonymous quote displays a common theme in both the book “The Scarlet Letter” and the book “Speak.” Do not judge people before you know them is a lesson that can be learned from both of these stories. The theme is only one of the multiple common aspects of the books “Speak” and “The Scarlet Letter.”…

    • 77 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Symbols In The Minister's Black Veil
    • 746 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Symbols In The Minister's Black Veil

    Most commentators, however, perceive far greater complexity behind the seemingly simple “parable,” as Hawthorne himself called it. Some view the major theme as the psychological power of guilt, and the minister as a mentally and emotionally unstable man who is driven to make visible his guilt for reasons that may or may not be revealed in the story (Alexander, Amy)…

    • 746 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Distorted Visions In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter
    • 1345 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Distorted Visions In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

    An example of this is Dimmesdale telling Hester, "Happy are you, Hester, that wears the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! Mine burns in secret!"(167) In a labyrinth of delusion, he selfishly ignores the pain and hardships that Hester faces because of her exhortation from society. His hatred and guilty conscience cause him to see Hester, the woman he loves, as the one who is free of the weight of the level of oppression that he experiences daily from the sin they share. He resents the sin to the point that he cannot help but associate the passion he has for Hester with it and then partially blame her. Another example is how Hester, having never “felt… love, nor feigned any” (68) for Roger Chillingworth, is able to clearly see " 'the hatred that has transformed’” (151) the man she agreed to marry, from a “’wise and just man to a fiend'"(151). She never feels love for him in the form of blinding passion , so she is able to see him for who he really is. Although they are bonded together by marriage, there is no real relationship there to blur her logic. Hester is later a victim of distorted views when she is overwhelmed with her "troubled heart" (87) to the point that she questions "whether Pearl was a human child” (83). The emotions that come with sin, exclusion from society, and raising a child alone delude her into thinking that Pearl may be “ an airy sprite" (83). Her daughter, Pearl is the only thing keeping her going at this point and Hester is fully aware that this is in fact her human baby. Influenced by her emotions and Pearl’s challenging demeanor, she cannot even think logically to recognize how unlikely it is that her child is anything other than human. Emotions involved in relationships have a way of making things seem far from what they really are as Hawthorne reveals throughout the…

    • 1345 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Arthur Dimmesdale: The Modern Day David
    • 1063 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Arthur Dimmesdale: The Modern Day David

    Arthur Dimmesdale is a great man and also a priest, but later on in his life when he met Hester it seemed like everything turned to sin. Arthur was a very strong and knowledgeable man. He stood strong in the values he preached and also in the words he said. In the Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne sin was entered by a man and a woman. It wasn't planned to happen the way it did but when Arthur and Hester met it was instant love. This was shocking to know that the priest was the one to have a baby with a married woman but also shocking to see how his town viewed him after knowing the fact. With the choice Arthur Dimmesdale made at that one instant time would be a choice he would have to live with for the rest of his life. With this choice came guilt, responsibility Gods power, and also shame. Not only to him but to the people around him that knew what kind of person he was.…

    • 1063 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Dimmesdale Quote Essay
    • 309 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Dimmesdale Quote Essay

    Dimmesdale is a priest that is cold hearted and needs to confess of his sin. So what does he mean in this Quote “[Men who have unconfessed sins] shrink from displaying themselves slack and filth, in the view of men; because thence forward no good can be achieved by them; no evil of the past can be redeemed by better service.” Is Dimmesdale right in this Quote?…

    • 309 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Madame Defarge Quotes
    • 1260 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Madame Defarge Quotes

    While pursuing revenge, it is said to start digging a grave along with the grave of the person being avenged. In Book 3, Chapter 14 of A Tale of Two Cities, Madame Defarge reaped that which she sowed. It was made evident that concerning Madame Defarge, the revolution in France is in fact just a euphemism for the revenge she wants to execute against the Marquis Evremonde. She adopted compensating that which the Marquis stole from her, which was all her living relatives, as her personal mission. Despite achieving her goal of capturing Charles Darnay, and having him sentenced to death by the guillotine, she is still not satisfied. Madame Defarge goes in search of Lucie, Darnay's wife, in hopes of catching her in the act of lamenting for a prisoner.…

    • 1260 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics