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Prynne And Dimmesdale's Downfall

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The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, tells a story of a strong woman who learns from her mistakes and accepts her future in Puritan society. Meanwhile, another character experiences extreme guilt and suffers through his punishment. All through these hard times, their actions express their morbid and sorrow filled lives. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne and Dimmesdale show a morbidity of spirit in their emotions and their mannerisms. Hester Prynne, the main character, has a gloomy and unwholesome state of mind. She is filled with thoughts and experiences that other women of her time did not even think about. Hester is described as morbid on several occasions; for example in chapter 2, “It had the effect of a spell, taking …show more content…

His mind is in constant turmoil from his immorality, transforming him into a guilt-ridden tortured soul, because of his secret. Hawthorne expresses Dimmesdale 's morbidness when he says, “Yet Mr. Dimmesdale would perhaps have seen this individual’s character more perfectly, if a certain morbidness, to which sick hearts are liable, had not rendered him suspicious of all mankind. Trusting no man as his friend, he could not recognize his enemy when the latter actually appeared” (135). Dimmesdale is living with Chillingworth, his physician, who is described as evil and tormenting towards Dimmesdale, yet, the minister does not know that his enemy is the one he is trusting. Furthermore, Dimmesdale attributes, “all his presentments to no other cause but his own morbid heart” (146). He is discovering that he should not trust Chillingworth and that he has contributed to his poor mental state. Chillingworth has only made Dimmesdale’s guilty conscience worsen. To further demonstrate his morbidness Hawthorne states, “And, all this time, perchance, when poor Mr. Dimmesdale was thinking of his grave, he questioned with himself whether the grass would ever grow on it, because an accursed thing must there be buried” (148). It shows a glimpse inside the mind of Dimmesdale, really explaining what he feels. It shows how deeply his morbid thoughts about death are; he actually wondered whether or not grass …show more content…

The Scarlet letter is a book with many obvious and some not so obvious references to morbidity. It isn’t a light-hearted feel-good story with a happy ending, but one over-shadowed by guilt and severe consequences to immoral

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