In the book The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne demonstrated Dimmesdale suffering and regret over the years that build him up and lead him to many obstacles and challenges that killed him in the inside. Also, Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts the agony of Dimmesdale`s conscience as his guilt that is eating away at him until he confesses. In addition, Dimmesdale’s faces many obstacles and challenges that killed him and eat him from the inside. For example, of a challenge that he faces is not confessing to Hester Prynne up front to the townsfolks that he was Hester partner in the affairs. Another example is that when Hester walk up on stage and confess that she was responsible for the adultery and while she was talking, she has
In chapter 11 especially Dimmesdale struggles to come to terms with his sin and it weighs heavily on him but he is still not willing to sacrifice his respect within the community. Dimmesdale struggles to come to terms with his sin because he knows that he will be unable to fully redeem himself if he continues to hide his sin from puritan society but he feels extremely conflicted because he doesn't want to sacrifice his reputation. ”They deemed the young clergyman a miracle of holiness. They fancied him the mouth-piece of Heaven’s messages of wisdom, and rebuke, and love. In their eyes, the very ground on which he trod was sanctified”(pg.94).
Then, and there, before the judgment seat, thy mother, and thou, and I must stand together. But the daylight of this world shall not see our meeting!" (Hawthrone 277). This reply Dimmesdale gives to pearl when she asks him why he cannot stay with his mother and her together shows that even though Dimmesdale feels guilt and wants to make things right with Pearl and Hester. However, he still has a constant fear of what the public would think of him and the fear of losing his position in the church/society.
Dimmesdale is consumed with so much guilt that the reverend started to punish the body God gives Dimmesdale for the sins committed. The Reverend believes that the punishment God is giving the reverend is to torturing the body given to Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale wants to expose the sins committed and live a life of truth just as Hester Prynne is living with her sins. Dimmesdale begins to envy Hester living a life of truth without having to punish the body God gives Hester, for the crime of adultery the woman commits with
Dimmesdale thinks about this even more throughout the novel. When he meets with Hester and Pearl in the woods he comes to the conclusion that he needs to tell the truth to the townspeople with Hester and Pearl at his side. When Dimmesdale does tell the townspeople that he committed adultery they do not believe him. After failing to convince them, Dimmesdale dies with a heavy heart. Although, they don’t judge him as harshly as they did Hester.
But it were irreverent to describe that revelation... Then, down he sank upon the scaffold!” (250). Once Dimmesdale unveils his own scarlet letter, he finally experiences the final straw of his personal suffering. Because his guilt is so magnificent, he is condemned.
Guilt lead Dimmesdale to whip himself, starve himself, and possibly carve the scarlet letter into himself. His health depletes rapidly after Hester is publically shamed but he is allowed to continue his normal daily life. This creates unrest in Dimmesdale, he feels that he also deserves a punishment. Therefore, one night, Dimmesdale in his state of omnipresent guilt, goes to the scaffold, the one that Hester was publicly shamed on. While traveling
Guilt spreads throughout him as each day passes. According to Hawthorne, Dimmesdale compresses each emotion that has to do with his adultery with Hester: “to whom should be confided all the fear, the remorse, the agony . . . All that guilt sorrow, hidden from the world” (127). Hawthorne says all the “guilt sorrow, hidden from the world”, but is this true? Dimmesdale does keep the secret to himself, until the end, but physically he divulges his secret to the townspeople.
Rumors flew regarding how Dimmesdale got his scarlet letter: he carved it himself out of guilt, Chillingworth’s strong hatred increased its power, and that it was burnt onto him out of regret. All these rumors reflected the pain Dimmesdale got because he only thought of protecting his own reputation at first. Revealing that hiding anything and only to protect personal benefit will destroy one’s spirit and soul. Dimmesdale’s death impacted many characters. Chillingworth had no more sin to feed on and therefore withered; Pearl, found a happy new life in Europe.
(158), and he replies “More Misery, Hester! Only more misery” (158). In reality, he feels worse about “saving” others because he is really just corrupting the “redemption of [their] souls” by virtue of his own “ruined soul” (158). This quote is important because one argument for not confessing is that you can still help people; however, if your soul is corrupt, how can you save others? In the end, Dimmesdale’s body cannot stand the guilt any longer, and he decides he must confess before he passes away.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale commits a mortal sin by having an affair with a married woman, Hester Prynne. As a man of the cloth in Puritan society, Dimmesdale is expected to be the embodiment of the town’s values. He becomes captive to a self-imposed guilt that manifests from affair and his fear that he won’t meet the town’s high expectations of him. In an attempt to mitigate this guilt, Dimmesdale acts “piously” and accepts Chillingworth’s torture, causing him to suffer privately, unlike Hester who repented in the eyes of the townspeople. When Dimmesdale finally reveals his sin to the townspeople, he is able to free himself from his guilt.
Arezu Lotfi Mr. Burd, Block A American Lit 11 November, 2015 Fight or Flight With the inner struggle of guilt, a person can either be redeemed or destroyed. In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne Hester Prynne is ridiculed publicly by the Puritan community for adultery. Mr. Dimmesdale, the man Hester cheats with is a young minister in the town, and hides his sin from the community. Together the two have a daughter named Pearl, that Hester raises.
Many characters from The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, changed throughout the progression of the novel, — including Chillingworth, Hester, and even Pearl herself. No character, however, has changed as much as Dimmesdale has. Towards the beginning of the novel, Dimmesdale tries to ignore his sinful actions. Near the middle of the book, the clergyman, with the ‘help’ of Chillingworth, is able to realize his wrongdoings, and starts obsessively thinking of those wrongdoings. Around the end of the novel, with the help of the forest’s freedom, is able to finally repent correctly for his sin.
The book “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a complex novel that has underlying themes of sin and the responsibility for sin. The novel takes place in a Puritanical society, but two people, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, fornicate with each other, even though Hester is married to someone else. Only Hester is punished, so Dimmesdale keeps his guilt inside, not revealing it to anyone. Hester’s husband, Chillingworth, then proceeds to ruin Hester’s partner in crime, corrupting his soul and being the ultimate cause for his death. Hester, on the other hand, leads a relatively happy life after she had repented for her sin.
While both Chillingworth and Dimmesdale were living together so Chillingworth can conduct laboratorial exams, the narrator makes
