Hester feels that she is to blame for Dimmesdale’s poor condition because while Dimmesdale has been torturing himself over his secret and slowly killing himself, Hester just sat back and witnessed it all and did not help in comforting him.…
As she stood on the scaffold she held, Pearl, the child she bore because of her sin. Hester endured this horrible punishment, but where was her partner in all of this? Mr. Dimmesdale was standing beside the magistrates watching all of this silently, not wanting anyone to know that he was also a part of this crime. Yet, what if his name was spoken and revealed? Would his punishment have been this severe? At the end of the novel, when Dimmesdale reveals he also shares Hester’s sin many citizens afterward still did not believe that such a godly man would do this. In the novel it reads, “ ...spectators of the whole scene…denied that there was any mark whatever on his breast…Neither, by their report, had his dying words acknowledged… the slightest connection, on his part, with the guilt for which Hester Prynne had… worn the scarlet letter” (Hawthorne 285). They simply remained ignorant and refused to state that they saw the scarlet letter upon his breast. Many townspeople believed that his confession of the transgression was not a confession, but rather a passionate sermon on this subject. However, if Hester would have confessed it would have been easy to believe because women were seen as weak and the main culprits of adultery.…
He outwardly fails to give any sense of his relationship with Hester fearing the repercussions. Inwardly, Dimmesdale struggles with the cowardliness as he watches Hester live a life of solitude and hardship. His guilt, self-pity, and disgust manifest itself in the form of the A which he branded to his chest.…
Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester Prynne’s minister, suffers the greatest burden in the novel. Little does the congregation know that he had an affair with Hester. Instead of admitting his sinful act, he keeps it secret. In the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, this secretive sin brings Arthur Dimmesdale physical, emotional, and spiritual burdens.…
Unfortunately for Dimmesdale, he is unable to escape the unbearable suffering of his shame and does not find it as enlightening as Hester does. Dimmesdale cannot express the truth regarding his actions with Hester and that silence is more shameful than any punishment she receives (Kilborne 473). Hawthorne describes Dimmesdale’s life as:…
The scarlet letter tells the story of sin, guilt and repentance. The scarlet letter was given to Hester and Dimmesdale to constantly remind them of their sins. Guilt ate away at characters, such as Dimmesdale, when trying to conceal his sins. Repentance was also felt by characters throughout The Scarlet Letter.…
Hawthorne often places Dimmesdale’s character amongst the shadows, concealing him and the secret. If those surrounding him were to discover his disgraceful act, he could lose everything. By staying hidden in the heavy folds of the curtain, Dimmesdale withholds his actions and emotions while residing out of the sunlight cast upon the floor. Correspondingly, once the first opportunity passed for telling his secret, Dimmesdale took it upon himself to ensure no one uncovered the truth because of his job. His sin suddenly becomes a considerably heavier burden than Hester’s.…
Sin is considered to be a morally bad act in the Christian faith. In The Scarlet Letter, the Puritans’ views on human nature were affected by their belief in original sin. Nathaniel Hawthorne allows the reader to see the significant role that sin plays in human experience and in the Puritan society in which Hester Prynne lived in through the use of symbols in his novel. The symbols that are present convey messages about how humans should deal with their flawed nature and the negative effects that sin has on the body, mind, and soul.…
A man without purpose is a man without life, which in this story is what happens to Roger Chillingworth. The townspeople were very judgmental people with very little compassion. Pearl is the “sin child” who is the daughter of Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne. Hester is the wife of Chillingworth, who has a child while he is gone, and later she wants to leave with Dimmesdale to live somewhere else, because she loves him. Dimmesdale is the great minister of Salem, Massachusetts and has committed a very large sin himself and has convicted other people of the same crime, making him a hypocrite.…
In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes Puritan ideology to convey a philosophical reflection on sin and redemption. Adulteress Hester Prynne must wear a scarlet A to mark her shame, and while her lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, remains unidentified and is wracked with guilt, her husband, Roger Chillingworth, seeks revenge. Although all three characters contemplate redemption, it is only Hester that chooses to confront her sin; Dimmesdale and Chillingworth refuse. This decision is heavily influenced by their respective morals. Hester’s morals of truth, forgiveness, and honesty allow her to be almost fully redeemed in the eyes of the public, whereas Dimmesdale's perverse loyalty to the morally corrupt society that hinders his love for…
Revenge, the action of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for their wrongdoings against another, is characterized as a corruption of the mind of the affected individual. Throughout the history of literature, countless authors have incorporated the theme of revenge into their works. For example, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth seeks revenge on Minister Dimmesdale because of his crime committed with Hester. Similarly, in William Shakespeare’s, Othello, Iago devises an evil plan to avenge Othello of his rumored sin.…
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s most successful and best known novel, The Scarlet Letter, is driven by the theme of vengeance. That is to say that, the acts of retaliation played out by Hawthorne’s characters in response to the intense pain inflicted upon them by the consequences of sin moves the story chapter by chapter from Hester Prynne’s imprisonment a lifetime later. By the story’s conclusion, the characters are exposed for who they really are, which in some cases is the very opposite from what the reader first assumed. Vengeance causes The Scarlet Letter’s characters to become completely irrational and leads them to do heinous things in an attempt to punish and destroy the ones that they blame for their suffering the most. Many studies show that vengeance is the number one cause of violence that science can identify. About twenty percent of murders are rooted in the need for revenge against another human. Malicious groups such as terrorist organizations recruit vengeance-driven people to perform suicide missions that end in the death of innocents. Each character is directly affected by the vengeance of a few. This shows how one’s actions do not just affect one’s self, but…
“Guilt is through the spirit and Pain is the body.” Everyone is sinful or guilty in a way, whether it is lying or doing adultery. It is mistakes that are caused by people. Because you will have to be guilty first in order to suffer the pain that was caused by their sin. Mr. Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne had to suffer his own sin and can’t find a way to confess to the society, no one understands what is he going through. Hester has to suffer from her own sin with everyone be disgusted by her, wish to not have any relationship with her. This is the same with John Proctor in The Crucible by Arthur Miller. He had to suffer a sin of his own, due to the affair between him and Abigail Williams. Therefore he has to face…
As the novel progresses, the reader sees Dimmesdale’s guilt control and eventually corrupt his life because of his hypocrisy and unwillingness to confess his secret sin. The guilt Dimmesdale feels causes him to hide among the higher peoples of the town, so his secret will not be found. Only when told of his responsibility to obtain Hester’s confession and repentance, does he reluctantly stand up to question her. Hawthorne describes Dimmesdale as he walks to the end of the balcony, “there was an air about this young minister, – an apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightened look, – as of a being who felt himself quite astray and at a loss in the pathway of human existence, and could only be at ease in some seclusion of his own”(75; ch3). Dimmesdale’s cowardly heart and hypocrisy show themselves by him hiding behind his question to Hester. He knows full well the answer to his question of who the father of her child is. He uses the question to hide, because no one in the town will suspect him. Though Dimmesdale indeed feels guilt over his sin, his cowardly heart still shows itself by not being able to stand up and confess his sin publicly.…