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How Did Arthur Dimmesdale Use Darkness In The Scarlet Letter

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Philosopher William Shakespeare said, “The eyes are the windows to the soul.” He based this statement off of something Matthew said in the Bible. To summarize, Matthew said that healthy eyes suggest that the body is full of light and if your eyes are unhealthy, your body is full of darkness. Not just the eyes, but the appearance of a person can tell a lot about his or her innermost feelings. This can be seen in the characters in Nathaniel Hawthorne's book The Scarlet Letter. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale physical features are transformed by the darkness weighing down on their hearts. Dimmesdale is introduced in the first scaffold scene. “[Dimmesdale] was a person of striking aspect with a white, lofty, and impending brow, large, brown, melancholy eyes, and a mouth which, unless he forcibly compressed it, was apt to be tremulous, . . .” (Hawthorne 62). These traits show the first hints at his internal feelings of guilt. Nine months earlier and before he committed adultery with Hester Prynne, it can be …show more content…

He walked into the square for his Election Day speech with a new energy, which he got from the hope of escaping with Hester and their child, Pearl. After he completed his speech, all of that energy was drained. “It seemed hardly the face of a man alive, with such a deathlike hue; it was hardly a man with life in him that tottered on his path so nervelessly, yet tottered, and did not fall” (Hawthorne 224). Dimmesdale had come back to the conclusion that only way to ease his guilt was to publicly confess his sins. His physical features became as haggard and ghastly. His sure step from minutes before became unstable and weak. After he calls Hester and Pearl onto the scaffold and confesses, he dies. Dimmesdale dies not because he confessed to sins but because he waited seven years to do it. The guilt had already destroyed him and his death was going to happen no matter if he did or did not

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