In the Dark Romantic novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne reveals that the truth will unleash its dominance over the soul through broken barriers of secrecy of a character. Arthur Dimmesdale, was a respected and dignified man in the Puritan town because of his reputation as a minister. Dimmsdale soon found his paramour, Hester Prynne and both of them committed the sin of adultery together. Hester confessed her sin of adultery and paid the price for it; unlike Dimmesdale, he waited seven years to confess to his crime of impregnating Hester. After years of waiting, the truth consumed his soul and began to unleash out into the Puritan town. When Dimmesdale confessed he stated, “ye, that have loved me!—ye, that have deemed me holy!—behold
By revealing this small, hidden regret, he exposes Hester’s tortured state of mind. Unable to reach salvation in the town she desired to live in, she regretfully decided to leave and abandon her sorrows. The burden society placed on her with the scarlet letter was too demanding for her to handle any longer. Similarly, Arthur Dimmesdale was distressed from his ignominy. Afraid of societal repercussions, Dimmesdale had been “overcome with a great horror of mind, as if the universe were gazing at a scarlet token on his naked breast” (102). Society’s extensive honor toward him exacerbated his pain, thus causing society to trap Dimmesdale; this prevented him from revealing his dark secret and reaching salvation. Additionally, he began to picture his surroundings as an obstacle designed to hinder his path to redemption. His shortcoming to reach salvation agonized Dimmesdale to the point where he was incapable of recalling “[any] text of Scripture, nor aught else, except a brief, pithy, and, as it then appeared to him, unanswerable argument against the immorality of
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
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale displays a similar characteristic to Edna Pontellier in Kate Chopin’s, The Awakening. Both Dimmesdale and Pontellier have a outward existence that conforms, while they have an inward life that questions. Dimmesdale is a minister in the town of Boston, Massachusetts. To the people of the town he is the example of divinity and purity. The townspeople believe he was chosen by God, but inwardly Dimmesdale is housing a secret, a sin, that is eating away at him. Hester Prynne a beautiful, young women is part of his sin. Together, Dimmesdale and Prynne committed adultery and have a child, Pearl. Prynne displays the symbol of her sin by wearing a scarlet letter A, but Dimmesdale has not confessed and has planted his sin in his heart.
In the novel The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the characters, Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth face the burden of making paramount decisions. Each character chooses to make bold choices with substantial effects which determine how the story plays out. First, Hester chooses to not expose Pearl’s father. Second, Dimmesdale refrains from revealing himself. Lastly, Chillingworth chooses to hide his true identity as Hester’s husband. The end results of the antecedent decisions influence the shape and structure of the novel.
In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne exhibits how three very unique characters are evidently brought together by the sins that they have perpetrated and how they manage to perform acts of atonement in the puritanical Boston society. Hester Prynne sins by committing the shocking transgression of adultery. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, who as well engages in adultery with Hester, abandons her and their daugher because of his own cowardice and hypocrisy. Roger Chillingworth grows to become a maleficent being who tries to corrupt the very soul of Reverend Dimmesdale. Although Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale do sin greatly, it is Roger Chillingworth who sins to the most ferocious degree.
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
Arthur Dimmesdale has continually suffered because of the sin he has committed. He is tortured by his only friend who is really his enemy. He grows weaker day by day because he will not confess his sin. He starves himself and whips himself. He has a daughter but no one can know. People look up to him and he does not want to let them down. If only people knew that he committed adultery with Hester Prynne. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's, The Scarlet Letter, the author writes, “While standing on the scaffold, in this vain show of expiation, Mr.Dimmesdale was overcome with a great horror of mind, as if the universe were gazing at the scarlet token on his naked breast, right over his heart. On that spot, in very truth was, and there had long been,
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.
Mr. Dimmesdale is an almost perfect example of the contrast between public and private truth in The Scarlet Letter. The young clergyman is often seen as saint by the public. Many of his sermons throughout the book bring dozens to Christ in the small town. The people of the town even began to say,“The saint on earth! Alas, if he discern such sinfulness in his own white soul, what horrid spectacle would he behold in thine or mine!”(Hawthorne 246). In private though, Mr. Dimmesdale is actually being eaten alive by the guilt that his sin with Hester gave him. Mr. Dimmesdale’s adulterous act caused
The setting of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet letter” is crucial to the understanding of the event that takes place in the story. The setting of the story is in Salem, Massachusetts during the Puritan era. During the Puritan era, adultery was taken as a very serious sin, and this is what Hester and Dimmesdale committ with each other. Because of the sin, their lives change, Hester has to walk around in public with a Scarlet Letter “A” which stands for adultery, and she is constantly being tortured and is thought of as less than a person. Dimmesdale walks around with his sin kept as secret, because he never admits his sin, his mental state is changing, and the sin degrades his well-being. Chillingworth
From this sin came a very happy and energetic girl “Pearl”. So from the beginning, we see the sin that was committed. We only know half of who the sin truly belongs. “I thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer! Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him; for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life.” (Hawthorne 53) This is the first time we get a glimpse of guilt and the possibility that Dimmsdale is the fellow-sinner. As a preacher who speaks against sin, this is extremely hard for him. He wants to tell the truth but Hester won’t let him. This sin begins to completely consume one character the Reverend Dimmsdale. The guilt he feels drives him mad and causes him to carve an “A” into his chest and wonders the streets while asleep trying to let his sin be known. He even sits upon the gallows trying to tell people. The secret sin within this work was the sin of adultery not for Hester but her lover Dimmesdale. Throughout his works he speaks of different sins such is the case in the Ministers Black Veil.
All over the world, a famous cliché states that honesty is the policy, and remains used through all stages of life. Living with lies buried beneath the surface causes more internal trouble than letting the truth loose and dealing with the external consequences. The existence of lies held internally will allow the consequences of guilt to eat away at moral honorability. When a sin is committed, a consequence is inevitable and, therefore, redemption must be earned through good deeds. Within The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, instances of consequence and then possible redemption are presented through the characters of Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale.
In the earlier chapters of “The Scarlet Letter”, Dimmesdale had just committed adultery with Hester Prynne, which was a sin through the eyes of the Puritan society that the book took place in. Because he had committed this sin just a short while ago, the effects of the guilt and pain that he would put himself through over the following years had not yet taken a toll on his overall health yet. When Hester leaves the prison, Dimmesdale tried to convince Hester to reveal the name of the man who she committed the sin with. In Chapter 3, he exclaimed, “I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow