Who Is Arthur Dimmesdale In The Scarlet Letter

Arthur Dimmesdale can be identified as the priest of a small town in Boston Massachusetts. The townspeople admire Dimmesdale and think of him as one of the purest members of their small puritan community. Contradicting these assumptions made by the Puritans, Dimmesdale commits sexual acts with a woman named Hester Prynne. To others, they committed adultery because even though Hester’s husband has disappeared, they still classify as married because they never filed a divorce, therefore a married woman. As he did this, he became prey to the moral consequences that followed. Pearl, or

The third example of Dimmesdale is the worst sinner than Chillingworth is because he doesn’t have responsibility for what he has done. After Hester is out of prison, she is punished and she takes all the blame and their shared sin while Dimmesdale chooses to hide behind her. Dimmesdale let Hester and Pearl go through hash criticizing, disparaging, and insulting from everyone in the towns. People disparaging Hester by saying “This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there not law

In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne’s act of adultery with Arthur Dimmesdale (Hawthorne 231) ultimately leads to negative and positive impacts on her life, including being isolated from everyone in town, being mocked and gossiped about, being more mature, and being more compassionate. One of the negative

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 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

The third example of Dimmesdale is the worst sinner than Chillingworth is because he doesn’t have responsibility for what he has done. After Hester is out of prison, she is punished and she takes all the blame and their shared sin while Dimmesdale chooses to hide behind her. Dimmesdale let Hester and Pearl go through hash criticizing, disparaging, and insulting for everyone in the towns. People disparaging Hester by saying “This woman has brought shame upon us all, and

In The Scarlet Letter Arthur Dimmesdale’s sin of concealment leads to his downfall. Arthur Dimmesdale had an excellent reputation in town as a Puritan minister, however Dimmesdale himself bore a lot of guilt because he was keeping his sin, his affair with Hester Prynne, a secret. Dimmesdale and Hester had a baby. Hester was punished as an adulterer, however she refused to say who the baby’s father was. Dimmesdale knew that his reputation would be ruined if the Puritan people found out his sin.

Abandoning Hester and her illegitimate daughter Pearl also augmented his problems. Forcing Hester to go and find work around town, an obviously hard task for a single parent.  He also abandons them emotionally and physically. He is rarely there when Hester and Pearl needed him.  Innocent little Pearl wonders why Dimmesdale is so afraid of public displays of affection, yet when they are alone, he takes notice of her and Hester. Talking to him, Pearl asks  "Wilt thou stand here with Mother and me, tomorrow noontide? (149),” a question whose answer is unclear for Pearl. In fact, the only way Hester and Pearl receive any kind of support from Dimmesdale is when Hester threatens to tell the truth about his sins.

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.

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

Throughout this chapter Dimmesdale is tempted to do things, and is described as “At every step he was incited to do some strange, wild, wicked thing or another” (Hawthorn, 171). This is also confirmed by Olivia Taylor in her paper in which see is comparing Rev. Dimmsdale to a character from another novel “Like Dimmesdale, she too experiences moments of seeming insanity as she labors”(Taylor, 2). Much like Jesus was tested by satan after fasting for forty days Dimmesdale is tempted time and time again, but dimmesdale is not Jesus, and in his current condition by the end of his journey home Dimmesdale is nothing but a hollow shell of his former self, and he enters his house a broken man. Before We dive deeper in to the chapter let us look at a brief overview written by Robert

Hester Prynne and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale are the two main characters of the Scarlet Letter. While Hester’s husband is away, the two commit adultery and keep their affair a secret from the rest of the town. When the town officials realize that Hester is with child, they imprison her until the trial. The townspeople want to know who the baby’s father is but Hester refuses to tell them, even when her former husband inquires about it. As her punishment, the officials make her wear a scarlet letter “A” so everyone will know what sin she committed.

Dimmesdale’s love and agony towards Hester was shown in his physical and mental degeneration, furthermore, his love to Pearl, his daughter, was shown when he was trying to kiss her, but he always got her refusal, and this was the climax of his weakness and deterioration of character. yet, at the end of the novel, Dimmesdale’s health was in it’s worst stages, therefore he had nothing to lose, so he confronts his society and tells them about is adultery crime that he committed with Hester, and after he did that he gives up life, but as a matter of fact his death was not a sad one, for he was relieved from the pain in his heart and also got to kiss his daughter Pearl whom he never got to kiss, hence, at the end of the novel, the latter character musters courage and loses his weakness which was replaced with the powerful character that confronted without fear.

Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale are the two main characters in the novel the scarlet letter. As parents to Pearl, the daughter out of adultery, these two go through the journey of shunning and hatred, but not together. Their stories are very different, and yet, so very similar.

Arthur Dimmesdale, a minister, lives his life under the watchful yet admiring eye of the townspeople of Boston and, as a result, becomes a slave to the public opinion. His sin against Hester and Pearl is that he will