The Worst Sinner in The Scarlet Letter Essay

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is a study of the effects of sin on the hearts and minds of the main characters, Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth. Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth. Sin strengthens Hester, humanizes Dimmesdale, and turns Chillingworth into a demon.

Mr. Dimmesdale’s strong ties to his Puritan faith cause him to commit endless acts of severe penance as retribution for his sin, only bringing him continuous physical suffering and the longing for absolution. Dimmesdale’s faithfulness leads him to beg for God’s forgiveness through his actions in the hopes of saving his soul and avoiding some of the punishment he will likely bear in the afterlife. His penitence and fear of public exposure cause Dimmesdale to whip himself harshly in the closet and to fast “…rigorously, and until his knees trembled beneath him, as an act of penance” (136). Because of the lack of courage within his character, Mr. Dimmesdale turns to private suffering rather than public shame as a means for his atonement. These excessive acts of penance resulted in his suffering of intense physical and mental weakness, and causing him to become frail in overall spirit. In his most extreme act of repentance, Mr. Dimmesdale stooped to self-mutilation by carving the letter A into his own chest to match

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.

Dimmesdale has yet to reveal the truth, which, so far, has been devouring him,physically and mentally. Since this good reverend is so spiritual, he cannot reveal his truths to the town so simply. He is of the Puritan faith and being a follower of that, the sin of adultery is a very grand sin. The whole town would look down on him as if he were a hypocrite. Which in fact, he is, but his sin of adultery in that town would have been scoffed at just as Hester’s has. The reverend is so well liked by the townsfolk that

The transgressions that Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale perpetrates all begin when he commits adultery, and that causes him to reject his own daughter Pearl and her mother Hester. However, he still puts forward various different forms of atonement to pay for the awful wrong doings. When Hester is standing upon the scaffold Dimmesdale along with the other clergymen “stood in a

In The Scarlet Letter there are three main sinners presented to the reader. Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth are all written with their own forms of sin, and each has a unique coping mechanism for their sins and guilt. Sin, at this time, was a hugely important part of daily life, and punishment for one’s sins was universally seen as not only a positive thing, but a necessary action to keep the people of the colony pure. Both Hester and Dimmesdale receive great punishments for their sin of adultry. However, one character is portrayed as a true sinner, more so than the others. Roger Chillingworth is by far the worst sinner in The Scarlet Letter. This is made apparent by

Guilt and shame haunt all three of the main characters in The Scarlet Letter, but how they each handle their sin will change their lives forever. Hester Prynne’s guilt is publicly exploited. She has to live with her shame for the rest of her life by wearing a scarlet letter on the breast of her gown. Arthur Dimmesdale, on the other hand, is just as guilty of adultery as Hester, but he allows his guilt to remain a secret. Instead of telling the people of his vile sin, the Reverend allows it to eat away at his rotting soul. The shame of what he has done slowly kills him. The last sinner in this guilty trio is Rodger Chillingworth. This evil man not only hides his true identity as Hester’s husband, but also mentally torments

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

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.”

The partner of sin with Hester, Dimmesdale is a young minister who is very popular for preaching his enlightening sermons. Although Dimmesdale is seen in the light, that light is dimmed through the constant physiological manipulation brought forth from Chillingworth. One cannot live with so much guilt so Dimmesdale deals with it by self harm. Hawthorne illustrates a change in the minister, “His inward trouble drove him to practices more in accordance with the old, corrupted faith of Rome than with the better light of the church in which he had been born and bred.”. A change indeed one that haunts Dimmesdale to his eventual

Early in the novel, the reader sees evidence of Dimmesdale's hypocrisy. Although the audience remains unaware of his sin until later on in the novel, Dimmesdale asks Hester on the scaffold to reveal the name of Pearl's father, instead of confessing. As the text reads "If thou feelest it to be for thy soul's peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name

    Dimmesdale on the other hand continues to suffer physically and mentally for the concealment of his sin.  Dimmesdale feels that he is safe from being condemned by Puritan society by concealing his sin, yet ironically, it eats away at his heart.  Ironically, a townsperson says to Dimmesdale, speaking of the searching out of sin, "methinks it

Dimmsdales sins affects his physical well-being, and his mental stability. Since he never publicly admits his sin, he has to keep his sins bottled up within him. He has no way to relieve himself of the burden of his sins, but to be shamed in public. He ultimately becomes a coward and he tortures himself . He was healthy before, but as the years go by, he becomes sickly, and he worsens his condition by abusing himself. Later on through the years, when he joins with Hester and Pearl in the forest , he becomes different, and when they decide what their plans will be, his health changes, and his energy seems as I it was back. He changes and transforms to another person. "The minister's own will, and Hester's will, and the fate that grew between them, had wrought this transformation. It was the same town as heretofore; but the same minister returned not from the forest." He changed to a new him.

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.

        Pearl primarily serves the role of silently urging Dimmesdale to overcome the pressures to conform to society, and to allow his guilty inner-self to emerge and receive retribution for his sins. She exists as a constant and living reminder and product of the sin Hester and Dimmesdale committed, and acknowledges the false innocence Dimmesdale tries so desperately to maintain. Her inquisition, "Why does he not wear [a scarlet letter] outside his bosom as thou dost?" (ch 16) to her mother concerning Dimmesdale is evidence of this. Pearl has no chance to conform to society because at birth she is regarded