Reverend Dimmesdale's Punishment In The Scarlet Letter
Dimmesdale’s Punishment in The Scarlet Letter
Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, a brilliant spokesperson and a devout and wise Puritan minister in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, is the lover of a woman who commits adultery, Hester Prynne. Hester, a recognizable adulteress, wears the scarlet letter and lives as an outcast. Contradicting, Reverend Dimmesdale’s sin stays hidden from the Puritan community, known only to Hester and himself. As a minister, Dimmesdale believes he should suffer from punishments the way Hester did for committing the same crime, which leads him to fall into a terrible mental and physical state. Reverend Dimmesdale suffers a greater punishment than Hester by experiencing recurring guilt, physical harm, and Chillingworth’s torment.
Dimmesdale experiences guilt after he commits adultery. As a devout Puritan minister, Dimmesdale preaches against sin. However, Dimmesdale contradicts his preaching and has an affair with Hester, a married woman. The novel begins with Hester standing on a scaffold for public shaming. The Puritans use Hester as an example of what will happen if one commits adultery. Later in the novel, Dimmesdale confesses his guilt and unbearable misery to Hester in the forest: “Mine burns in secret! Thou little knowest what a relief it is, after the torment of a seven years’
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Though he does not receive punishment from the Puritan community, he gives it to himself. He makes up for not confronting himself to the Puritan community by scourging and fasting. In addition, hallucinations make his suffering unbearable. On the other hand, Hester stands on a scaffold for public humiliation. Hester’s strong and bold personality makes the public shaming sustainable and has little effect on her. Dimmesdale’s weak nature, causing him to feel insecure and guilty, makes his punishment
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573 Words | 3 PagesDimmesdale is the biggest jerk of The Scarlet Letter. From the beginning of the book, Dimmesdale is a hypocrite. Although it is implied that he preaches against premarital sex as a Puritan pastor, Dimmesdale commits adultery with Hester. After getting Hester pregnant, he avoids visiting Hester and his daughter for seven years.
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693 Words | 3 PagesIn The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, both Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. However, one suffered more than the other did because the punishments were different. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale suffered more than Hester because, unlike Hester, he had nothing to live for and because of the guilt he had to keep hidden. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale suffered greatly through his conscience and had nothing to ease it. Dimmesdale had nothing to live for because he didn’t have a family or someone that needed him.
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417 Words | 2 Pages“And the infectious poison of that sin had been thus rapidly diffused throughout his moral system” (Hawthorne 174). In The Scarlet Letter, Dimmesdale serves as the holiest person many people meet in their moral lifetime, and as the purest embodiment of God’s word. However, Dimmesdale has a wounding secret, a cancer, that tears his soul apart throughout his time in America. Dimmesdale falls prey to sin in a moment of passion with Hester, resulting in her condemnation by the townspeople, and the birth of their child, Pearl. For years, Dimmesdale’s life is defined by an internal conflict - his job demands his purity in the eye of the townspeople, but he desires the acceptance of herself that Hester achieves through her sin being made public.
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861 Words | 4 PagesIn Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne is convicted of adultery and the whole town ostracises her for her sin and the secrecy of who the father is, who is coincidentally their preacher, Reverend Dimmesdale. The town fails to find out the true identity of the father until he confesses seven years later after the birth of Pearl. While Hester is able to forgive herself with the help of her only treasure, Pearl, Reverend Dimmesdale does not forgive himself. When Rev. Dimmesdale fails to confess and forgive himself, he dooms his life forever because of the burden of his sin; but, not only did it hurt his life, it hurt Hester and Pearl and the rest of the community. Reverend Dimmesdale feels very guilty for not confessing to
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1158 Words | 5 PagesIn 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.
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