The Importance Of Guilt In The Scarlett Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

‘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

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.

During Dimmesdale's sermon, Hester is taken from her piteous thoughts when Dimmesdale calls out for her and Pearl to join him on the scaffold. Hester knows that her worst fear is about to come true as she approaches the scaffold "slowly, as if impelled by inevitable fate, and against her strongest will" (Hawthorne 282). Hester did not want to go on to the scaffold because she never wanted to relive that nightmare again, but she knew that Dimmesdale needed her strength, yet all of Hester’s power and pride were drained. But because Hester loved Dimmesdale so, she stood at Dimmesdale's side, as he confessed his sin to the townspeople (Hawthorne 283). After confessing his sin, all was done for Dimmesdale, and he begins to sink to the floor, as

Dimmesdale’s feeling of guilt drives him crazy that he begins to suffer from health and mental problems which was caused by his self torture to himself as well. In the book, Hawthorne described how he had “bloody scourge” that he made someone “plied it on his shoulders” and how he would “fast...until his knees trembled beneath him” and kept vigils on most nights (Hawthorne 141). He was serving himself with the punishment for his sin instead of making the officials decide his punishment. As a preacher, he knows the right thing is to be honest and accept his sin but does not have the courage and strength to publicly admit it. As the reader's progress further in the book, Hawthorne describes Dimmesdale reaching the “spot where now so long since,Hester Prynne had lived through her first public ignominy”(Hawthorne 143).

While wallowing in his own self grief and guilt in secrecy, Dimmesdale continuously weakens himself. The effect which hypocrisy of sin and guilt has on Dimmesdale is uncovered throughout thorough description of the self harm and mental abuse he puts himself through. Hawthorne describes the effect on Dimmesdale stating, “Poor, miserable man! what right had infirmity like his to burden itself with crime? Crime is for the iron-nerved...This feeble and most sensitive of spirits could do neither..” (129-130). In the Puritan society, sin is comparable to a crime which seems to tear Dimmesdale’s already weak soul to shreds. Hawthorne clearly reveals that Dimmesdale is not the type of man who can handle the intensity of crime/sin. He is so afraid of the community’s judgement and rejection, that he cannot even begin to process how difficult managing the sin in secrecy is going to be for him. Dimmesdale’s “feeble and most sensitive” spirit, is completely contrary to Hester’s spirit of great resiliency. While Hester stands upon the scaffold bearing the harsh shame of the Puritan society, she shows her true character and the lack of frailty in her soul. Hester stands proud and tall, holding her daughter Pearl tight to her bosom and remains accountable for her adultery while standing in front of

I see guilt most clearly in Dimmesdale. He is guilty and needs to confess his sins. He doesn’t confess because he is the pastor. While hester committed the same sin as him; she feels free because she was punished for her sins. He punishes himself but that isn’t any good because he does not feel free. He keeps torturing himself because he does feel guilty, and the colony doesn’t know that he sinned. Guilt is seen very clearly through dimmesdale.

It’s easy to commit a sin, but it’s not so simple living with a guilty conscience. The courage to admit one’s sins is necessary for salvation from guilt. As soon as remorse fills a person’s heart, it will leave a permanent mark, and he or she will never forget that agony. Nathaniel Hawthorne exemplifies that sole truth in the Scarlet Letter, “And be the stern and sad truth spoken, that the breach which guilt has once made into the human soul is never, in this mortal state, repaired. It may be watched and guarded; so that the enemy shall not force his way again into the citadel, and might even, in his subsequent assaults, select some other avenue, in preference to that where he had formerly succeeded. But there is still the ruined wall, and,

The guilt brought forth by sin is hoped to be blotted out once redemption is reached and faith is reconnected by repentance. The human nature of sin is linked with guilt that is freed by finding humility which brings redemption. Hester is weighed down by the guilt of adultery and lives in darkness as the sun avoids her due to her sin. Hester reaches humility once she becomes true to herself and her actions, she no longer lives in guilt of her sin and is brought into the sun. Dimmesdale struggles with the guilt of concealing his sin. Revealing himself as the sinner of the world shows his humility and reconnects him to God.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the topic of guilt is a reoccurring. Guilt is portrayed throughout the novel as causing immense amounts suffering. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, symbols throughout the novel examine how guilt is an everlasting punishment.

“Out of the mouths of babes” often times comes the purest. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the young characters embrace the truth and old characters express themselves through lies. In the rigid Puritan society of the 1690s, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale have broken one of the most egregious sin--adultery. Hester, who is married to old Roger Chillingworth, becomes pregnant with Dimmesdale’s child, Pearl. To shame her for her penance, Hester is sentenced to wear a scarlet letter upon her chest. Although all these adults live vastly different lives, they all share a mutual crime-- sin. Hawthorne illustrates a motif between young and old characters. One interesting aspect of this motif is that as the characters increase in age,

Dimmesdale wanders out onto the scaffold at early morning when nobody is out. He then sees Hester and Pearl to and states with great joy “‘we will stand all three together!’” (Hawthorne 142). He is extremely excited to finally stand with his family hand and hand, but once the sunrises his torturous punishment continues because he is unable to make any gesture towards Hester and Pearl in public. Dimmesdale not being able to make a gesture or grant his daughter's wishes of standing with them in public creates a sense of guilt and hypocrisy within himself as he watches Hester be punished publicly.

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne displays the mindset of both Romantic and Dark Romantic authors. The novel’s very title introduces the reader to a central symbol that Hawthorne uses to represent two of the main characters’ sin and guilt. Hawthorne uses duality and juxtaposition throughout the novel, so that the reader makes observations on man’s guilt and fault, but also the freeing aspect of humans’ hearts and also to develop the theme that it is better for one to accept his or her guilt than to mask it and entrap it within his or her soul. In the beginning of the novel, Hawthorne portrays the scarlet letter as a binding symbol for both Hester Prynne and Dimmesdale, though Hester comes to accept it where Dimmesdale gradually degrades internally and

The second scaffold scene is climax of internal suffering within Dimmesdale. Up until this point, Dimmesdale has been maintaining his position as Hester’s accuser and a hypocrite, unbeknownst to the rest of the townspeople. His agony is evident with the struggle of his perfect reputation battling against the sin he committed. This scene is one of anguish, clearly shown when Dimmesdale cries out in physical and mental pain. At the location of Hester’s humiliation, Dimmesdale holds a silent vigil. This scaffold scene is not an improvement from the first. In fact, it only highlights the lack of courage that Dimmesdale possesses. His feeble attempt at confronting his sin is a “mockery of penitence” (pg 83), only a half hearted attempt to confess

When the modern-day reader indulges in a novel published prior to the 1900s, they may not interpret the author’s work the way it was intended to be understood. A fine example would be The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In the beginning of the novel, a young woman named Hester Prynne was found guilty of committing adultery. Her punishment was to wear a scarlet “A” on her chest to cause her to feel shame and to stand on the town’s scaffold for three hours to endure public humiliation. In this scene, Hawthorne assumes that his audience understands how horrifying it was for a woman to be found guilty as an adulterer in the 1600s. As Hawthorne thoroughly depicts, there was no separation between the church and state, so if a woman was found

Mor-al /môrəl/ noun plural noun: morals A person’s standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do. This is how the dictionary defines morals. Different people have different sets of morals and sometimes they do not coincide with what is the law at that time ; for example in WWII era in Great Britain it was illegal to be homosexual. Some people at that time would be opposed to this law because of their morals and some people (i.e. the people that made the laws) might not agree with their morals. Many characters in the book The Scarlet Letter come to terms with what they would consider to be of moral value and what is actually the law. Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth were