How Did Arthur Dimmesdale Change Throughout The Scarlet Letter

In contrast to the first scaffold scene, the second one happened during the night, completely unseen by the other villagers. Again, we see Dimmesdale and Hester (and Pearl), but this time, the lovers appeared to be both on the platform of shame. In this passage, Dimmesdale finally decided to act upon his guilt since he “had been driven hither (to the scaffold) by the impulse that Remorse which dogged him everywhere” (132-133). This scene symbolizes a moment of great insight for the minister because he started to understand a way to repent himself. As Dimmesdale touched his little girl’s hand, he experienced “[an]other life than his own, pouring like a torrent into his heart and hurrying through all his veins, as if the mother and the child were communicating their vital warmth to his half-torpid system” (137). The miserable sinner, who lived in utter darkness and despair for such a long time, at last began to grasp his responsibility towards Hester and Pearl and his role in the redemption of all three characters. However, Dimmesdale’s insight was not complete because he was still bounded with fear. When Pearl asked him to expose his sin to the public and admit her as his legitimate child, his courage

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 Dimmesdale was a renowned, prideful man stricken with sin and extreme guilt.  From the time Hester and Dimmesdale made love, he was grievous of his sin but he also felt a great love towards her.  Dimmesdale's stubborn pride troubled him greatly, and although he tried many times, he could not confess his sin to his religious followers.  Dimmesdale felt guilt so strongly that he scourged himself on his breast and patterned an “A” into his own flesh, yet he could not confess his sin until his grief grew so great it caused him to perish.  Reverend Dimmesdale's sin was greater than Hester's because he let his pride conflict with his repentance, and let his life be ruined by his anguish.

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

One night he drags himself up the scaffold steps and screams, hoping someone will find him. “It is done! The whole town will awake and hurry forth and find me here” (Hawthorne 99)! Dimmesdale wants to be found out. What makes him cowardly is the fact that he will night outright confess, but still complains about his internal wounds. As he stands on the scaffold Hester and her daughter, Pearl, walk by on their way home when Dimmesdale stops them and asks them to join him, “Come up hither, Hester, thou and Little Pearl… and we will stand all together” (Hawthorne 101). Dimmesdale, though he’s trying to understand what Hester felt, still refuses to stand there with them in the daylight. Dimmesdale is still just as fainthearted as

Dimmesdale realizes that he must confess his sin and face whatever consequences may lie ahead of him, whether or not his confession is seven years past due. Before reaching the “well-remembered and weather-darkened scaffold,” where Hester Prynne had encountered the “world’s ignominious stare,” Arthur Dimmesdale cautiously comes to a pause (246). Only two people in the crowd, Roger Chillingworth (Hester’s husband) and Hester Prynne, understand why Dimmesdale halts before ascending up the scaffold. He will finally reveal his identity to the town and release the guilt that has built inside of him for seven years. As Hester and Pearl are about to accompany Dimmesdale up to the scaffold, Chillingworth “trusts himself through the crowd” – or, from Hawthorne’s description, “so dark, disturbed, and evil was his look,” Chillingworth “rose up out of some nether region to snatch back his victim from what he sought to do” (247). Ignoring Chillingworth’s effort to stop Dimmesdale, the three mount the scaffold and face the eager crowd. In one of Dimmesdale’s final speeches, he claims that Hester’s scarlet letter “is but the shadow of what he bears on his own breast” (250). The moment after Dimmesdale reveals his ‘scarlet letter’, he stood “with a flush of triumph in his face as one who had won a victory” (251). As Dimmesdale had wished, his remorse and internal pain is forgotten once he reveals his true identity, allowing his soul to experience its elapsed freedom.

Not being honest has its serious lethal consequences internally and causes confusion in the heart of who a person really is under the lies. In the novel, Dimmesdale is not only deceiving others by hiding the truth but is also deceiving himself which leads to him having inner confusion of his true nature. Hester and Dimmesdale are in the forest going over their plans to run away when

From the start, Dimmesdale did not want to live with the consequence of his sin. To begin with, he must of told Hester not to tell anyone about his sin, because on the scaffold, she will not tell anyone (pg. 64). Clearly, Dimmesdale was afraid of the justice and the shame that would follow. He thought that if no one knew, he could

In the novel The Scarlet letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, it is about a young woman named Hester Prynne, who has committed adultery and gave birth to a daughter named Pearl. As a punishment, Hester has to wear a cloth with a scarlet letter ‘A’ on her chest that stands for ‘Adulteress’ for all her lifetime. Meanwhile, Hester’s husband, Roger Chillingworth, who has been missing for two years come back and decides to take a revenge on Hester’s lover. Throughout the novel, Chillingworth has discovered that a young minister named Dimmesdale is Hester’s lover. Dimmesdale is the worst sinner than Chillingworth because Dimmesdale doesn’t have moral, he is coward that decides to keep his secret, and he doesn’t have

In the book The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Dimmesdale gets sicker and sicker the longer he holds in his secret sin of Adultery. It takes place in a Puritan society, which was a strict, conservative, and simple group in Boston Massachusetts. The book focuses on the sin of Hester Pryne committing adultery and having a child, Pearl, with a man other than her husband, Chillingworth. Hester gets shamed and laughed at on the scaffold used for public humiliation. The vulnerable and weakening Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale comes closer to confessing to being Pearl’s father throughout the three scaffold scenes. “Sin as sickness” is a major theme in the book that is represented through Reverend Dimmesdale’s internal conflict. The more Dimmesdale

Immediate horror encompassed him because he is afraid of being discovered by the town. Alone

This scene in the book makes the reader feel as though Dimmesdale’s salvation is a reality because of all the opportunities he had to confess his sin but didn’t until now. Also during this scene, Dimmesdale not only asks for God’s forgiveness for himself, but Chilling worth too because he discovered that Dimmesdale is Hester’s partner. "May God forgive thee!" said the minister. "Thou, too, hast deeply sinned!" (23.28-29) In this part of the book, Dimmesdale makes it appear that he and God have a type of an abusive relationship, but Dimmesdale thinks he deserves every bit of it. "God knows; and He is merciful! He hath proved his mercy, most of all, in my afflictions. By giving me this burning torture to bear upon my breast! By sending yonder dark and terrible old man, to keep

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.”

Puritan society is also portrayed in a negative light when observing its effects on Dimmesdale. Arthur Dimmesdale is praised by many in his community as a holy figure and thus a leader, however, he is just as much a sinner as Hester, since together they committed adultery. The fact that he hides this secret in order to preserve this false image of himself shows how much he cares about how he is viewed by society. While many would argue that he does this out of his own free will, there is no doubt that he feels pressure from society to keep his past hidden and maintain this holy facade. Once Dimmesdale dies, some townspeople “affirm that the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the very day when Hester Prynne first wore her ignominious badge, had begun a course of penance … by inflicting a hideous torture on himself” (Hawthorne 230). When they see the letter branded on Dimmesdale, they are shown how he has been tortured by himself and by Chillingworth, as a result of the agony society put him through in hiding his secret of having committed sin. This instance shows how, in a deterministic society, even those viewed as the

This concealed sin is the center of his tormented conscience. The pressures on him from society are greater than those on Hester because he is a man in high standing, expected to represent the epitome of the Puritanical ideals. It is ironic that Dimmesdale, who is supposed to be absolutely pure and urges congregation to confess and openly repent their sins, is incapable of doing so himself. He knows the hypocrisy of his actions but cannot bring himself to admit his deed publicly. In resentment of this he punishes himself physically - he is "often observed to put his hand over his heart, with indicative of pain" (ch 9). Dimmesdale's resistance to be true to himself gradually destroys his well being as well as Hester's, and although he eventually declares the truth, his resistance ends him.