The Tale of Arthur Dimmesdale Nathaniel Hawthorne does a tremendous job at developing his characters throughout “The Scarlet Letter.” He put a very unique set of characters, each with their own personality that is expected of them at the beginning of the story, but, by the end of the story the reader realizes that the same character acts in a way that the reader was not expecting, because it took the whole story to unfold. One of the main characters that will be explained in the following paragraphs is Arthur Dimmesdale. He was the preacher for the puritans in the story, and although he began the story as what seemed to be a common and thoughtful man turned out to be something very different. Arthur Dimmesdale starts out as a well admired, trustworthy, thoughtful, …show more content…
Dimmesdale delivers a wonder sermon on the town’s election day, but as unfortunately for him, the bad things keep snowballing. Dimmesdale takes Hester by the hand and brings her up on a familiar scaffold with him, and he finally confesses his sin of committing adultery with Hester. Dimmesdale then reveals a scarlet letter “A” on his chest, put there by himself or as a sign from God, therefore revealing his shame and guilt by letting everyone see. Shortly after, while still on the scaffold, he dies. Dimmesdale may have had a lot of bumps in the road on his journey through life, but did he end by doing the right thing. By bringing Hester up on the scaffold with to finally confess his sin he finally practices what he has preached that those who sin must be punished, thus the scarlet letter. It also shows, although not displayed at the beginning of the story because of his cowardness to confess sooner, that Dimmesdale is courageous enough to display his wrong doings to the public instead of hiding it furthermore. Dimmesdale had his ups and downs throughout life, but did still prove that he was a man of God and stood by his
Quetext About Widget FAQ Contact Grace Hodges Mrs. Drew English 10 H 4 November 2016 Women Stand Strong Where Men Fail Add a grabber sentence here. In the classic novel, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the characters Hester Prynne, Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth are all linked together by one act of sin, and all experience shame and guilt about it. Each embarks on a separate journey to rediscover the purpose in his or her life. For Mr. Prynne, the shame of having an adulterous wife is too much to bear. He reinvents himself into Roger Chillingworth and becomes consumed in exacting revenge on Hester’s partner.
In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays Arthur Dimmesdale as a troubled individual. In him lies the central conflict of the book. Dimmesdale's soul is torn between two opposing forces: his heart, his love for freedom and his passion for Hester Prynne, and his head, his knowledge of Puritanism and its denial of fleshly love. He has committed the sin of adultery but cannot seek divine forgiveness, believing as the Puritans did that sinners received no grace. His dilemma, his struggle to cope with sin, manifests itself in the three scaffold scenes depicted in The Scarlet Letter. These scenes form a progression through which Dimmesdale at first denies, then accepts reluctantly, and finally conquers his sin.
Life is unpredictable, and through trial and error humanity learns how to respond to conflicts and learns how to benefit from mistakes. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is a character who changes and gains knowledge from the trials he faces, but first he has to go through physical, spiritual, and emotional agony. In the midst of all the havoc, the young theologian is contaminated with evil but fortunately his character develops from fragile to powerful, and the transformation Dimmesdale undergoes contributes to the plot’s climax.
Dimmesdale longs to confess his sin, but he cannot bring himself to do it. Dimmesdale has visions and delusions and begins to think falsely about the world. Dimmesdale feels as if there is a scarlet letter on his chest. When Dimmesdale brings himself to the platform where Hester was punished, Hester and Pearl join him. Pearl asks him if he will stand with them on the platform and he tells her on judgement day that he will. After time passes, people begin to think differently about Hester and the scarlet letter. They now consider the letter to be a sign of her strength. When Hester meets again with Roger Chillingworth she tells him that she must reveal the secret for the good of Mr. Dimmesdale. Hester wants Chillingworth to stop the evil practices
This is appropriately named because Dimmesdale reveals his “scarlet letter” and publicly confessing his sin during the second procession of dignitaries. He climbs the scaffold with help of Hester and pearl and confesses the sin, adultery, and that Pearl is his daughter. Upon his revealing he collapses and asks for forgiveness for roger and a kiss from pearl. He then dies in Hester’s arms and the crowd makes a strange murmur sound.
Dimmesdale is the character I chose, because he deals with his private child while being the minister in the town. This private sin is especially hard for him to come out with, because of his leadership and role in the town. The situation is eating him up inside, to the point where he starts beating himself, and doing several other things to harm himself. It not only took a toll on him, but also on pearl, the baby, and the mother, Hester. It had a worse effect on Hester than Dimmesdale, because Dimmesdale just let Hester take all the backlash for Pearl's birth.
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.
In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of the main characters is Arthur Dimmesdale, a Puritan minister living in Boston during the seventeenth century. Another main character, Hester Prynne, is the young wife of the aging Roger Chillingworth, a doctor who has recently gone missing. Dimmesdale and Hester commit adultery together and Hester becomes pregnant. Because her husband has been missing, however, the community discoverers her sin and they severely punish Hester. Dimmesdale does not confess to have taken a part in the adultery, and even with the ill treatment she receives, Hester refuses to reveal her partner in crime.
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 Dimmesdale could be a hero or a coward in hiding his sin from the Puritan community, but based on the evidence in the book, he is portrayed as a coward. In the book he continues his daily life as he usually would have, he has many chances to admit that he was the other person to participate in the sin with Hester, and he doesn’t continually pressure Hester into telling who the father of Pearl is. First of all, Dimmesdale continued his daily life as if he hadn’t sinned with Hester. For example, during the punishment of Hester he allowed himself to remain above the community with the other powerful people instead of not going to her punishment. This also showed when he appeared with Bellingham, Wilson, and Chillingworth in Bellingham’s house.
In some highly regarded works of fiction, the passage from one state to another – in growth, in belief, in understanding, in knowledge – is a terrifying process. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, this terrifying process of transformation and consumption by guilt can be seen in Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Throughout the entirety of this novel, we get to see Reverend Dimmesdale’s transformation from a healthy, active, and energetically young clergy man to a sickly pale shell of his former self through Hawthorne’s use of the timeless theme of sin and his onion-layered character development.
Arthur Dimmesdale committed the same sin as Hester Prynne but unlike Hester he never confessed to the community making him a bigger coward and sinner. Dimmesdale is seen throughout the novel holding his chest on the same place the letter is attached to Hester Prynne, this shows that no one can run away from the scarlet letter, it will always be there to confront you whether you like it or not. Dimmesdale ignores the guilt that he feels for the horrible sin that he committed which causes him to be extremely ill, “While thus suffering under bodily disease, and gnawed and tortured by some black trouble of the soul, and given over to the machinations of his deadliest enemy.”
After the minister's clandestine meeting with Hester in the forest, Hester has convinced him that they must leave the colony and return to England where they can live together as a family. Arthur Dimmesdale departs, looking backward, uncertain of what he has truly experienced. With the quandary of public hypocrisy and private suffering seemingly solved now, Dimmesdale's mind is free to consider other possibilities, and, like a child released from rules, his spirit feels a sense of release. He considers that he yet has time to give the Election Sermon, deceiving himself that the townspeople will at least say he performed his duties to the end. Having held his sin within his heart so long, Dimmesdale has become delusional. Of this Hawthorne
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
The beginning of the novel highlights the rationale for Hester’s physical isolation from the community; at the same time, the community recognizes Dimmesdale’s good character. Hester and Dimmesdale are complete opposites. Hester is the holder of the scarlet letter and publically shamed, while Dimmesdale is a clergyman who is looked up to by the