Transformation Of The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

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.

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

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

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 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

Reverend Dimmesdale is a character foil of Hester Prynne. Whereas she represents repented and forgiven sin he does not. Dimmesdale cannot forgive himself and tortures himself because of it. He does this by holding vigils and famines. This causes him to be weak and frail, whereas Hester is strong and thusly causing her to be the strength of Dimmsdale both mentally and physically. Together Hester and Dimmesdale plan to leave Boston to return to England, but Dimmesdale dies due to his constant torture.

Dimmesdale is the minster of the town, which means that he has several responsibilities and he is surrounded by the idea that he should live without sin to be an exemplar of the town. This creates pressure for Dimmesdale because he understands the severity of the sin he has committed. He feels like a failure to his followers and that he is unfit to be the minster anymore and that his life has no more meaning since he betrayed God. The narrator states “…on a pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life. What can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him…”, which is exactly what Dimmesdale did. He refused to confess when Hester was on the scaffold which left him to hide is

At this point in the book, Dimmesdale is well respected by the townspeople, and looked up to by many. He has a superior reputation and worries about ruining it. Dimmesdale urges Hester on the scaffold to tell the officials and the community the name of Pearl’s father. Though he does not have the courage to, since Dimmesdale is Hester’s spiritual mentor and pastor, he is obligated to question Hester about the crime. He knows that if he admits to his sin, he will lose the respect of the townspeople. The speech is two fold, meaning something different to both Hester and the townspeople. Dimmesdale starts contradicting himself, wanting Hester to name the father, but at the same time also not wanting her to: “Even in the first scaffold scene Hawthorne shows forth the deep ambivalence of Dimmesdale’s position: the minister would like to be named and known for what he is, an adulterer” (Twayne 3). Dimmesdale encourages Hester to give up his name when he says, “What can thy science do for him, except tempt him—yea, compel him, as it were—to add hypocrisy to sin?” (Hawthorne 26). According to his ability to keep in his true emotions, Dimmesdale seems unafraid to the community. Dimmesdale is a healthy Reverend, but his confidence slowly deteriorates as his sin consumes

This scene in the book makes the reader feel as though Dimmesdale’s salvation is a reality because of all the opportunities he had to confess his sin but didn’t until now. Also during this scene, Dimmesdale not only asks for God’s forgiveness for himself, but Chilling worth too because he discovered that Dimmesdale is Hester’s partner. "May God forgive thee!" said the minister. "Thou, too, hast deeply sinned!" (23.28-29) In this part of the book, Dimmesdale makes it appear that he and God have a type of an abusive relationship, but Dimmesdale thinks he deserves every bit of it. "God knows; and He is merciful! He hath proved his mercy, most of all, in my afflictions. By giving me this burning torture to bear upon my breast! By sending yonder dark and terrible old man, to keep

Dimmesdale, on the other hand, was a pastor, a position that was highly esteemed in Puritan society. Dimmesdale had a lot more to lose than did Hester. Also, Dimmesdale believed he could continue to be the mouthpiece of God if he kept his sin hidden. (17-172/173). Being a godly man, Dimmesdale only feels the guilt of his crime

Oh how the mighty fall. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's “THE SCARLET LETTER” we see this man of God, this mighty Reverend who was viewed in an almost aristocratic way plunge head deep into a pit of guilt and self pity, because he is scared to admit he is Hester's secret lover, and our good reverend eventually drives himself mad with sorrow and meets his end. This can be confirmed by a line for a paper written about Dimmesdale's feelings throughout the book “Dimmesdale alone knows that he is the man signified by this "A" for adultery and "A" for Arthur. This scarlet letter is indeed a letter, an item of private correspondence between lovers” (Valenti, 10). WE later see our grand reverend’s snapping moment in the twentieth

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

This concealed sin is the center of his tormented conscience. The pressures on him from society are greater than those on Hester because he is a man in high standing, expected to represent the epitome of the Puritanical ideals. It is ironic that Dimmesdale, who is supposed to be absolutely pure and urges congregation to confess and openly repent their sins, is incapable of doing so himself. He knows the hypocrisy of his actions but cannot bring himself to admit his deed publicly. In resentment of this he punishes himself physically - he is "often observed to put his hand over his heart, with indicative of pain" (ch 9). Dimmesdale's resistance to be true to himself gradually destroys his well being as well as Hester's, and although he eventually declares the truth, his resistance ends him.

In “The Scarlet Letter,” Hawthorne presents the consequences of sin as an important aspect in the lives of Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingsworth, and Arthur Dimmesdale. The sin committed, adultery, between Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale had resulted in the birth of their innocent little girl, Pearl. This sin ruined the three main characters’ lives completely in different ways. With the sin committed, there were different ways the characters reacted to it: embracing the sin, concealing the sin, and becoming obsessed and consumed with it. With each reaction to the sin there were also different actions of redemption.