Theme Of Public And Private Truth In The Scarlet Letter

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.

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

The main characters whose lies devastate the characters in the novel, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, are Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and Hester. Each character has once told a lie either about their character or identity. First, Dimmesdale is well-known in the community as a minister who gives sermons. But the townspeople do not know about the affair between him and Hester. He lies because he does not want to give up his reputation as a minister. The effect of him lying is that he has a guilty conscience, thinks that he “sold himself to the devil”, and ironically, people view him as a saint. (Hawthorne 193). Next, Chillingworth is an old man who is well-known in the community as the town doctor who makes medicine and takes

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

“All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret.” Everyone deserves privacy and the right to control what information is subjected to the public. Since everyone is showing their true colors, whether they know it or not, the amount of information out there in the world should be enough to know the character of an individual. In today’s culture, there is a want to expose someone, and the person being exposed may have said those thoughts in confidence, thinking it was a safe environment. People of faith should not show themselves freely to the world because it takes away their right to privacy which can affect their everyday life. In the Scarlet Letter, Hester underwent serious public shame because everyone knew about her private life without her consent. Her punishment was to wear a scarlet colored “A”, for adultery, on her chest and stand on a scaffold in front of the whole community for public shame. They even tried to take her child away. In the book, it describes her punishments by saying, “Lastly, in the lieu of these shifting scenes, came back the rude market-place of the Puritan settlement, with all the townspeople assembled and levelling their stern regards at Hester Prynne, - yes, at herself, - who stood on the scaffold of the pillory, an infant on her arm, and the letter A in scarlet, fantastically embroidered with gold-thread, upon her

Guilt can destroy someone mentally. According to The Scarlet Letter, it can destroy someone physically as well. Dimmesdale is one of the main characters who chose to keep his sin a secret. Not only does he have to live with the knowledge and guilt of what he did, but he has to constantly pretend that he is more pure than he is. The people of the Puritan town tortured him in a way, because the large amount of praise they gave the minister just made him more guilty and remorseful. The novel The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne takes place in a 1600’s Puritan community named Massachusetts Bay Colony. Dimmesdale has had an affair with the main character, Hester Prynne. He never confessed to his actions, so he never suffered any direct consequences. Because of this, the puritan town’s view of Dimmesdale stays relatively the same throughout the novel, until the ending. Dimmesdale has been kept down heavily from the guilt and remorse brought from keeping his sin a secret.

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.

Within the pages of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s famous novel, The Scarlet Letter, the character of Arthur Dimmesdale, minister in the puritan society, changes tremendously. Specifically in chapters nine through eleven is where his change is most evident. In chapter 9, on page 116, Hawthorne offers up an intricate description of Dimmesdale, his newly discovered sin, and how he is dealing or rather not dealing, with the repercussions of his sin. This description depicts Dimmesdale’s epic struggle with his sin while being a minister in such an oppressive society like the Puritans, and how the deed is slowly eating him alive.

What does secrecy have to do with the suspense and power in a novel? Secrecy plays a great role in the Scarlet Letter. The secrecy to a story adds suspense and grabs the reader's attention. In the Scarlet Letter there is great secrecy among the characters and the townspeople. The cause of secrecy is very important, while it adds to the story, and makes it more enjoyable.

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

Imagine a world in which everyone believes it is in their best interest to suppress their feelings. Most people in the modern world would undoubtedly find this prospect awful and depressing. After all, our phenomenon of instantaneous communication was conceived with the belief that humans desperately want and need to share their emotions and ideas. The widespread popularity of Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking websites seem to affirm this assumption. If one was to compare the Puritan setting of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter with this hypothetical world, they would soon realize the two

“Acutely aware of the power of history, [Hawthorne] wanted to control it”, by burning any early drafts and manuscripts of the Scarlet Letter. (Wineapple, 1) By doing this, Hawthorne was able to control how the world saw him, just as Dimmesdale does not reveal his relationship with Hester immediately. (Hawthorne, __________) He understands the importance of receiving the approval of the community. Another parallel between the two can be seen in their societal positions. “Hawthorne ranked highly in his class,” but he was constantly absent from his classes which hurt his standing in the college. (Wineapple, 2) Just as Dimmesdale was very well respected by the community, so much so that a “good widow [was] assigned to” care for him while he was ill, only to throw it all away with his affair with Hester. (Hawthorne, 122) Both held favorable positions in their individual societies, only to give them up to pursue other things that made them happier. The character of Dimmesdale not only served as a connection to Hawthorne’s years as a young man, but he also worked as a contrast to the character of Hester; thus strengthening the emphasis the Scarlet Letter places on the potential of women in 19th century

Throughout the Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne makes it clear that Reverend Dimmesdale is ashamed that he has hidden his ignominious sin from the people. Within this narrative, the citizens of Salem, along with specific key events, impact his morality and influence his decision to display the Scarlet Letter upon his chest – to the public. It is not until the end that we see his inner soul devoured by his own sin, causing him to break and finally tell everyone the truth about the identity of Hester Prynne’s lover.