Analysis Of ' The Scarlett Letter ' By Nathaniel Hawthorne

The third example of Dimmesdale is the worst sinner than Chillingworth is because he doesn’t have responsibility for what he has done. After Hester is out of prison, she is punished and she takes all the blame and their shared sin while Dimmesdale chooses to hide behind her. Dimmesdale let Hester and Pearl go through hash criticizing, disparaging, and insulting from everyone in the towns. People disparaging Hester by saying “This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there not law

A reader may label Dimmesdale the purest of the sinners. Adultery, in the Christian world, is the one of the greatest sins a man can commit, second only to premeditated murder. In a Puritan society, it must be close to the same. Dimmesdale tries to purge himself of this evil sin by scourging and self-denial. However, he shies away from public confession, rationalizing the good he can instill in other men and women with his sermons. We find this illogical reasoning on page He endures Chillingworth's revenge and hatred while trying to preach what he doesn't practice. At his weakest point, Hester tempts him to cave in to the sin and do it all over again. Out of desperation to flee from the torture, he crumbles

Contrarily, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale chooses to conceals his sin which leads to the deterioration of his physical and spiritual health, and ultimately leads to his death. Dimmesdale is given several opportunities to confess his sin but refrains from doing so, looking for penitence - fasting and whipping himself - but finds no solace. After years of bearing such guilt, Dimmesdale tells the townspeople that he is Hester’s secret lover and Pearl’s father before his death. Confessing his sin allows Dimmesdale to find peace before death however, the overwhelming guilt was too much to bear. One wonders, would admitting to adultery in the beginning have prevented Dimmesdale’s demise?

Dimmesdale portrays himself very ironically. He is a very well respected reverend and yet, has, for the last 7 years, worked on preaching the word of God, especially while he urges the congregation to confess openly to repent unto God. While, in reality, Dimmesdale is the one whoneeds a clean conscious. He feels like he needs to confess not only to the town but also too himself. Halfway through the novel

Dimmesdale kept his act of deceit up for 7 years and the town suspected nothing and admired him for his good ‘godly’ character. ‘The fasts and vigils of which he made a frequent practice, in order to keep the grossness of this earthly state from clogging and obscuring his spiritual lamp. Some declared, that if Mr. Dimmesdale were really going to die, it was cause enough that the world was not worthy to be any longer trodden on by his feet’(Hawthorne 113). Dimmesdale led the townspeople to believe that his fasts were for religious purposes and not him punishing himself. Ministers are supposed to set an example of how to live a holy life, Dimmesdale deceives people and lets them think his actions are for God when infact he is actually punishing himself for being a hypocrite.

               The fact that Dimmesdale is a hypocrite causes him to experience increased torment due to his guilt.  Dimmesdale beautifully illustrates Hawthorne’s point, because if he were not such a highly religious man, then he would not care about his crime.  However, he does care, and he inflicts torment on himself, including long periods of fasting. In addition to hours of staring at himself in the mirror, he could also be caught numerous times in his closet, whipping himself and burning the letter "A" on his chest.   Or he could be seen at the scaffold in the wee hours of the morning, practicing how he is going to confess the next day. Deluding himself by pretending that his

Dimmesdale has a largely different approach to dealing with his sin. Arthur Dimmesdale handles his terrible guilt by concealing it to himself. To overcome it he would whip himself, and take long walks into the forest. Dimmesdale’s act of concealing his guilt shows that he is not brave enough to tell all and there for he must live fearfully and cowardly. This guilt he has chose to endure is much worse than any shame he would have felt had he just confessed his sin of adultery with Hester. Since he was a moral leader in his town he felt an obligation to keep it a secret but like in many cases where guilt is concealed, the sinner eventually reasons enough to confess. Dimmesdale does the same and confesses his sin to the townspeople. “He longed to speak out from his own pulpit, at the full height of his voice, and tell his people who he was.”

Moreover, Dimmesdale`s suffering reflect on the outside when he was sick of not confessing his truth. For example, of this is that in the book the another has shown us that Dimmesdale suffering is reflecting him on the outside that why in the chapters Dimmesdale keeps on holding on his heart on where the letter “A” is carve on this chest. Another is that when Dimmesdale was leading the church to tell the town folks about how God will be like if you did not follow in the correct way he will sin you that why Dimmesdale did not what to tell everybody about it if he did he could get killed and thought out as a minister in the church and also the townsfolks always believe that Dimmesdale is the only one that can connect to God and he cannot do

Even though it is clear that Dimmesdale felt extremely guilty, he never actually wanted to admit that he had sinned. The fact that he intended to confess his sin for the final time during the night shows that he does not want the people to know, but just wants to clear his conscience by confessing to himself. While Dimmesdale was on the scaffold, Reverend Wilson walked by and Dimmesdale apparently said hello but was in such

    Dimmesdale on the other hand continues to suffer physically and mentally for the concealment of his sin.  Dimmesdale feels that he is safe from being condemned by Puritan society by concealing his sin, yet ironically, it eats away at his heart.  Ironically, a townsperson says to Dimmesdale, speaking of the searching out of sin, "methinks it

Nathaniel Hawthorne's bold novel, The Scarlet Letter, revolves around sin and punishment.  The main characters of the novel sharply contrast each other in the way they react to the sin that has been committed

Reverend Dimmesdale did not initially want to confess. Being an important religious figure to the community, he sensed the public not knowing of his failure of falling into the temptation of the flesh, would benefit them. Reverend Dimmesdale thought them knowing of his sin would make them feel hopeless for their own salvation. Obviously this was not the case and these were only the thoughts of a corrupt minded man who was lost in his own sin. It started to eat Reverend Dimmesdale alive and transform him into this jaded creature. His sin was too much to bear, so ultimately Reverend Dimmesdale confessed to his immorality.

(167) This contrast between the heavy description of Dimmesdale when interacting with society and light descriptions of Dimmesdale when imagining spending life within nature proves that the pressure society places on people to feel guilt for their sins is detrimental, and will do more harm than good. Dimmesdale then rejects this idea and reenters society. Upon his return, “he was incited to do some strange, wild, wicked thing,” which came from a “profounder sense than that of which opposed the impulse.” (178-179)

This decision of him eventually led him to his demise, obtaining a scarlet letter of his own, going through the pain of repentance but never truly repenting. Essentially the idea is Dimmesdale choose to keep his sin a secret, and it only lead up to his

All along Dimmesdale felt the blameworthiness for the sin and instead of being publicly persecuted, as Hester was, he persecuted himself internally. Dimmesdale did not get to raise his daughter, Pearl, and was eaten alive by the guilt of the sin and ends up dying of an illness as a result (Hawthorne). The sin that he committed was publicly acknowledged at the end of the story as he stands upon the scaffold and reveals his sin to the people of the Massachusetts