Arthur Dimmesdale And Double Life In Hawthorne By Nathaniel Hawthorne

In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the main characters have different kinds of burdens to carry depending on their level of ownership over their actions and identity. Dimmesdale has the worst burden to bear because he did not own up to his actions until the very end, Hester has to adjust to the punishment that the Puritans gave her, and Pearl has no burden because she is honest. Throughout the novel, they face different obstacles that contribute to their everyday lives that makes it hard to process everything at once. It’s also to show how the characters were able to face the problems and deal with them

The second character, Arthur Dimmesdale is the epitome of hypocrisy. Hawthorne intended his name to have symbolic meaning, Dimmesdale meaning dim or not very bright. Arthur might be bright in the areas of theology, but when it comes to hypocrisy, he is a fool. Dimmesdale says very near the beginning of the book “What can thy silence do for him, except to tempt him---yea, compel him, as it were---to add hypocrisy to sin?”(Dimmesdale 47). He knows what will happen to him if he endures his sin in private, but he is too weak at this point in the book to admit it. The tapestries of biblical adultery, which are found in Arthur’s room, are hypocritical. These are supposed to help him atone for his sins by making him feel guilty, but he feels no better. Arthur goes and preaches every week on how bad sin is, and how he is the worst sinner of them all. These partial confessions just make him more of a hypocrite. Dimmesdale knows how the parishioners will interpret these confessions; he is not blind to their looks of adoration. Dimmesdale enjoys

Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter conveys the war between passion and responsibility, and how it concerns moral duty. Conflicts which Reverend Dimmesdale faces show readers how difficult it can be to come forward and reveal your sins. The circumstances which victimized Dimmesdale made it harder for him to accept responsibility publicly, which is the foundation of much of this novel. Hawthorne uses Dimmesdale’s character to convey the true struggle between passion and responsibility in The Scarlet Letter. While Dimmesdale yearned to face his sins, his passion overpowered him and took over the

The main characters whose lies devastate the characters in the novel, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, are Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and Hester. Each character has once told a lie either about their character or identity. First, Dimmesdale is well-known in the community as a minister who gives sermons. But the townspeople do not know about the affair between him and Hester. He lies because he does not want to give up his reputation as a minister. The effect of him lying is that he has a guilty conscience, thinks that he “sold himself to the devil”, and ironically, people view him as a saint. (Hawthorne 193). Next, Chillingworth is an old man who is well-known in the community as the town doctor who makes medicine and takes

Set in seventeenth-century Boston, “The Scarlett Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a story of principal human values and the consequences if said values are replaced with deceit and falsehood. Sincerity and honesty are indirectly pinned as requisites by Hawthorne in order to be a genuine and sane person in society. This is best expressed in the line, "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.” Hawthorne continued his claim by recounting the stories of Pearl, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth who all went about deceit differently or not at all.

Guilt, shame, and penitence are just a few of the emotions that are often associated with a great act of sin. Mr. Arthur Dimmesdale, a highly respected minister of a 17th century Puritan community, is true example of this as he was somehow affected by all of these emotions after committing adultery. Due to the seven years of torturous internal struggle that finally resulted in his untimely death, Mr. Dimmesdale is the character who suffered the most throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Mr. Dimmesdale’s ever present guilt and boundless penance cause him an ongoing mental struggle of remorse and his conscience as well as deep physical pain from deprivation and self inflicted wounds. The external influence of the members of

Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, a main character in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, proves to be a sinner against man, against God and most importantly against himself because he has committed adultery with Hester Prynne, resulting in an illegitimate child, Pearl. His sinning against himself, for which he ultimately paid the

Nelson Mandela once said, “There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.” In most cases, it is difficult to distinguish and fully understand when you have changed. Whether it be a trivial change in habit to a crucial character transformation, it is best to set oneself up against an untouched canvas, and begin to analyze the newfangled person from there. Throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, the concept of identifying one’s changes is apparent in two of the main characters, Pearl and Dimmesdale. Both characters experience their own engenderment of maturity and personal growth, though Dimmesdale’s involvement with it is much more deleterious in comparison to Pearl’s.

The book of Proverbs 28:13 says ,“Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.” This quote explains that anyone who keeps in their sin will continue to guilt and torture themselves by doing so. Hawthorne uses many different forms of imagery and allusions to show the significance of hidden sin. The reader can see how Hawthorne uses sin to change his character's physical and mental state. There were three characters he changed throughout the book: Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester Prynne, and Roger Chillingworth.

Do you act differently around certain people? Are your actions different because you want to impress a girl, the popular kids, or your teacher you want a letter of recommendation from? All around the world, people try to disguise their true self, just so they can fit in and be someone they are not. In The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale had been living behind a mask for seven excruciating years, as he remained unwilling to face the repercussions of society for his adulterous affair with Hester Prynne. If Dimmesdale was his honest and true self, he would have escaped death. While the epic is exaggerated through paranormal and supernatural occurrences, many of the punishments inflicted and morals questioned are quite topical today. Nathaniel Hawthorne encourages the readers to ‘show freely to the world’, no matter how daunting that personality may be (410). Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale’s downfall affirms the damaging effects of falsifying one’s disposition in The Scarlet Letter and today’s society.

Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, the popular, gifted, young clergyman and in which no expected, was Hester Prynne’s secretive lover. The citizens of Boston saw him as the perfect man, who could do no wrong. Little had they known, his sin was just as bad as Hester’s. Just like Black’s quote stated, Reverend Dimmesdale, acted on his light side, and used his sins to preach his best of sermons. Hawthorne stated on page 131, ‘To the high mountain-peaks of faith and sanctity he would have climbed…”. As many can observe, the young clergyman was a tremendous minister. He preached wonderful sermons and truly showed himself to be a man of God. Dimmesdale was a talented young man with a dark side that few people knew of. “…Mr. Dimmesdale was thinking of his grave, he questioned with himself whether the grass would ever grow on it, because an accursed thing must be there” (Hawthorne 131). This shows while he was preaching tremendous sermons, his health started to deteriorate, due to his inner guilt he was holding within himself. Perhaps if his lingering sin had not expended him, he would have been able live a happier, healthier life. However, unfortunately for him, the secret he was keeping was eating at him from the inside out and his darkness was prevailing. Dimmesdale’s sin of keeping the

‘Honesty is the best policy’; ‘Always be yourself”, are common phrases many parents tell their children and as common as they may be, being honest and being true yourself contributes to individual happiness and contentness. ‘The Scarlet Letter’ by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a novel that dives deep into these key themes of honesty and integrity and the consequences of doing the opposite action. One of the main characters, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is a minister in 17th century Puritan New England who has deteriorating health because of his lies and guilt. Dimmesdale commits adultery with a beautiful woman in the town, Hester Prynne, whose husband, Roger Chillingworth, returns from Europe later on. Pearl, who is a product of Hester and

"Life is hard, but accepting that fact makes it easier." This common phrase clearly states a harsh fact that Rev. Dimmesdale, a character in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, had to face. In this story of deception and adultery set in the Puritan era, Hawthorne introduces Dimmesdale as a weak and cowardly man who refuses to take responsibility for his actions.  The Rev. Dimmesdale is a transitional character in that he is, at the beginning of the novel, outwardly good but inwardly deceitful and by the end of the novel he becomes both outwardly and inwardly truthful.

Secrets can destroy even the most respected people. Sometimes is not the secret itself that drives people into exhaustion, but the emotional baggage that comes with it. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Dimmesdale physically deteriorates because of his guilt caused by a dishonorable sin. The Puritan society in which the story is set discourages the idea of the private self, which Hawthorne shows by creating distinctions between the characters’ private and public lives, specifically Dimmesdale’s.

Throughout all the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne, one thing always reoccurs. What is this one thing? Well, it is secret sin. This Great American Writer of the Romantic era in literature had a firm grasp and understanding of human nature and what it means to be human. The darkness of Hawthorne’s writings come from his own observations of human nature and the treachery that we can commit either in front of others or in secret. A secret sin is nothing more than some sin you committed; but, you are the only one who knows. So it is something that isn’t known by the population. To understand Hawthorns obsession with secret sin we must look