The Seven Year Lie By Nathaniel Hawthorne

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

Arthur Dimmesdale’s guilt began to destroy him. In chapter 11 it says, “In Mr. Dimmesdale’s secret closet, under lock and key, there was a bloody scourge. Oftentimes, this Protestant and Puritan divine had plied it on his own shoulders, laughing

The Scarlet Letter is a book filled with sins of many different kinds. There is lying, adultery, and transgressions throughout the novel. However, there is a man who consistently models all these sins together--Arthur Dimmesdale. He is guilty of lying to his people, encouraging a woman to cheat on her husband, and committing transgressions against God and man. For this, he has sinned the worst of all characters.

Dimmesdale’s guilt was evident in his physical condition and how he often clutched his hand over his heart—a symbol that he felt same agony of the letter “A” because he was a partaker of the sin. Furthermore, the minister’s unease is shown in chapter twenty when he fears that he has made a bargain with the “black man.” When Dimmesdale returned to town from the forest, he began to get tempted in several incidences with people of all ages and genders. However, he did not fall into temptation. Once again, Dimmesdale felt the support and strength of God, and it was ultimately God’s grace that made him victorious over the temptations and his fear towards the devil. With God in his life, Dimmesdale did not feel confused instead he had a focus and a burst of energy rise in him. After the reconciliation between the minister and God, Dimmesdale showed a sign of strength as he confronted Chillingworth and confessed to the doctor that he will no longer be taking the medicine. Chapter twenty shows the importance of God in Dimmesdale’s life. When life was chaotic, God was there to remedy the problems and get Dimmesdale to focus. The minister shows his awe and gratitude to God by humbly saying how God could use a “…foul…organ-pipe as he [Dimmesdale].” In addition, Dimmesdale’s psychological strength is shown when he decides to rewrite the Election Sermon and he is so enthusiastic about the speech that time “fled away”

Arthur Dimmesdale is a character portrayed in both the light and the dark by having passion for helping people yet by hiding his sin by holding “his hand over his heart” (Hawthorne 110). Even as a minister he struggled with the conflict of evil

Adolescent age is a period where young minds are developed through their own personal experiences. The most common causes of their development are environmental changes that surround them and their personal accounts in relation to nature. In the “Beet Queen”, Louise Eridich uses point of view, selection of detail, and imagery to depict the impact of the environment on the two children by relating the environment to the children's attitude and their personal involvement when they enter a new environment. The choice to use specific details when it came to Eridich to describe the environment that Mary and Karl were in helps develop the plot of the story.

Moreover, in The Scarlet Letter, the scarlet letter symbolizes Arthur Dimmesdale’s guilt because he feels like god is punishing him for not confessing to his crime of adultery but in reality Roger Chillingworth is the one torturing him to confess. For example, “By sending yonder dark and terrible old man, to keep always at red heat.” (Hawthorne,1850) Hawthorne also uses dramatic irony because although the Roger Chillingworth is torturing Arthur Dimmesdale, he does not realize it. The Scarlet Letter demonstrates how a noble person can oftentimes be blinded by their conscience and not realize the person who they think is helping them is actually hurting them.

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.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, the young Arthur Dimmesdale is a highly respected reverend in 17th century puritanical Massachusetts. However, he is the most morally ambiguous character in the novel because of the one great sin he commits and fails to readily confess. For this, he suffers an internal affliction that destabilizes his physical and spiritual composure. Dimmesdale’s sin was detrimental, but this action cannot qualify him as a bad person because in all other aspects, he is as righteous as the Puritans came. This moral ambiguity of Dimmesdale plays a pivotal role in the novel because it allows the reader to distinguish between true good and evil.

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

The Scarlet Letter, a Puritain-Period novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, displays this theme through the life of protagonist Arthur Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale works as the Reverend in Boston, Massachusetts, during the time of Puritanism. Dimmesdale fathered an illegitimate child named Pearl with

All of the major characters in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne are dynamic and go through some form of character development. Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, who are at the forefront of the central conflict in the plot of the novel, are no exception. While their respective evolutions in character were noticeably different, each was emphasized by the three scaffold scenes. The differences of Hester and Dimmesdale’s respective character developments are highlighted and emphasized by the three scaffold scenes in the novel.

The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne focuses more on the symbolic meaning than on characterization. The Scarlet Letter revolves around the themes of sin, guilt and redemption, which are conceptualized through an adulterous life story in Massachusetts. Adultery is expressed in a means, which is not only psychologically disturbing but also reflects upon understanding of the human heart. Hester Prynne is an adulteress who is forced to wear a scarlet letter A on her gown according to Puritan practices. Arthur Dimmesdale, struggles in the background with guilt for fathering her secret child, Pearl yet the woman gets to be castigated independently. Furthermore, Dimmesdale is a cleric and Chillingworth who is Hester’s husband, from

"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.

In The Scarlet Letter Hypocrisy is evident everywhere. The characters of Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and the very society that the characters lived in, were steeped in hypocrisy. Hawthorne was not subtle in his portrayal of the terrible sin of hypocrisy; he made sure it was easy to see the sin at work , at the same time however, parallels can be drawn between the characters of The Scarlet Letter and of today’s society.