Hawthorne portrays Arthur Dimmesdale as a hypocrite in order to show the contrast between a person’s life with society knowing their sins‚ like Hester’s‚ and a person’s life with concealed sins‚ like Dimmesdale’s‚ as well as exhibiting the negative effects that hypocrisy can have on someone’s conscience. Body: Throughout the novel‚ Dimmesdale exhibits his life of hypocrisy more and more as he struggles to deal with its negative effects on his conscience. From the moment Dimmesdale had an intimate relationship
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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
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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? Dimmesdale is right and has a good point in the beginning of this quote. The reason is because he says “Men who have unconfessed sins shrink
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provided by the author to show us a kind of foil. The one character‚ Reverend Dimmesdale‚ seems as if he is kind‚ but he has been living with a terrible burden‚ hindering him everywhere he goes. Chillingworth is his opposite‚ you would assume him to be nice when really he is quite evil. Dimmesdale and Chillingworth bring out each other’s characteristics and bring out the characteristics of other characters around them. Dimmesdale and Chillingworth but heads in every aspect of their lives especially when
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Many characters go through transformations in The Scarlet Letter‚ and one of those characters is Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Author Nathaniel Hawthorne writes of a puritan society‚ and it is the laws of that society‚ both written and unwritten‚ that Dimmesdale breaks and which causes the changes to occur. He commits the sin of adultery‚ and by sleeping with Hester Prynne‚ breaks the laws that he is supposed to represent. He cannot admit his sin because he is a holy man‚ and admitting his sin would
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portrays Dimmesdale as a weak person. Throughout the novel he shows his true character by the way he lets his weaknesses destroy him. He constantly worries about he secret getting out and punishes himself for what he has done. Dimmesdale has many weaknesses that all lead back to one main one‚ Hester. He is a priest and knows she is married but they still commit adultery. This leads to Hester’s pregnancy and the townspeople’s knowledge of her adultery. They don’t know however that Dimmesdale is the
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In the novel The Scarlet Letter it was necessary to keep Hester Prynne’s adulteress lover Arthur Dimmesdale a secret because of their young daughter Pearl. Hester Prynne was married at the time Pearl was conceived‚ making the townspeople furious with her adultery. As her husband comes to town under an alias named physician Roger Chillingworth‚ he examines the Panic-stricken baby and bashes Hester for being deceitful. Moving to the outskirts of town and raising what many called a “devil baby” Pearl
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Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter‚ Reverend Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth are two men that have three main differences in character. The first trait is Chillingworth and Dimmesdale’s difference in their internal struggle. Chillingworth is a man who is on fire with his want of revenge. At the beginning of the novel he makes a vow to find the man Hester had an affair with. “He will be known!” is the statement that defines Chillingworth’s life (57). Dimmesdale is a man who is being crushed by guilt
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Arthur Dimmesdale was a very important character in The Scarlet Letter. He encountered many problems and resolved them throughout the novel. He changes a lot throughout the novel‚ physical and mentally. While reading the novel‚ the reader can relate to Dimmesdale by his actions and feelings. Minister Arthur Dimmesdale explains the moral of the story‚ and helps the reader understand what the novel is about. First‚ Dimmesdale encountered many problems throughout the story. These problems were very
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torment of a seven years’ cheat‚ to look into an eye that recognizes me for what I am!’” (148) Hester and Dimmesdale meet at the forest and have a conversation. Dimmesdale has been lying to the church officials and to the townspeople for the sin he has committed for seven years. To the townspeople‚ he is a respectable minister loved by everyone‚ but in reality‚ he is a sinner. Provided that‚ Dimmesdale feels relief speaking to Hester. “’We are not‚ Hester‚ the worst sinners in the world. There is one
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