Scaffold Scene In The Scarlet Letter
Nathanial Hawthorne sets the climax of The Scarlet Letter up in his telling of the scaffold scene. Throughout the scene Hawthorne utilizes parallelism, a subtle spiritual allusion and a heavy dose of irony in order to resolve the main conflict of the book, Dimmesdale’s refusal to tell the truth. Hawthorne presents the scene at a very quick pace; which appeases his audience compared to the slower pace set in earlier chapters.
Hawthorne makes clear the thoughts of Dimmesdale by continuously repeating them. Dimmesdale is up on the scaffold and wants nothing more than for Hester and Pearl to join him, “come hither! Come…” he repeats to them throughout the scene. Hawthorne makes Dimmesdale wish so clear in order to show that he is exposing his sin for their benefit. Along with needing Hester and Pearl by his side, Dimmesdale also illuminates that “with God’s help” he will be free. Hawthorne engrains that Dimmesdale could not stand up and speak out if he didn’t believe that God was in his corner. Hawthorne’s use of parallelism clarifies to the audience what they already know, Dimmesdale is a weak man who needs reassurance from another person or entity that
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When Dimmesdale is walking to the scaffold a man stops him urging him not to “blacken” his “fame”. This old man embodies the hypocrisy so deeply embedded in the minds of the Puritans that when Hester committed the sin she was damned for life but since he is a minster there is no need for punishment. Dimmesdale always needing support, begs Hester to “support” him up on “yonder scaffold”. Hester had to stand up on the scaffold with nothing but a red letter marking her chest, an illegitimate baby, and the judgment of the townspeople to keep her company but Dimmesdale is now asking for support after doing nothing to help her so many years before. By putting Dimmesdale in Hester’s position the hypocrisy of the Puritans can no longer be
What Is Dimmesdale's Suffering In The Scarlet Letter
702 Words | 3 PagesIn 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
Dimmesdale In The Scarlet Letter
1227 Words | 5 PagesHester and Dimmesdale have both committed adultery, but Hester accepts and embraces what has happened. Alternatively, for Dimmesdale, enduring seven long years of guilt and sin are required to get him to finally reveal the truth. Taking so many years to do so shows how
Who Is Dimmesdale's Decay In The Scarlet Letter
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.
Essay On The Scaffold In The Scarlet Letter
1344 Words | 6 PagesThe Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, focuses on the life of Hester Prynne—the unlucky soul who is caught committing adultery and forced to live a life of shame and ignominy. The scaffold is not only the start of her predicament, but it is also the end of the once seemingly perfect Reverend Dimmesdale’s own guilt. The scaffold is the setting of a scene three times throughout the novel: the beginning, middle, and end. For such a lifeless object, it is difficult to recognize its significance in the novel; however, the scaffold is used by Hawthorne to portray the changing relationship between the characters, specifically Hester, Dimmesdale, and Pearl.
Motivation In The Scarlet Letter Summary
259 Words | 2 PagesEdward C. Sampson’s article, “Motivation in The Scarlet Letter” is a rebuttal against a past articles about the motivation behind Dimmesdale’s confession in the final scenes of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Other critics- one of which includes Anne McNamara argue that Pearl is the sole cause of Dimmesdale 's confession of sins, which Sampson highly disagrees with. He strongly believes that it is Dimmesdale himself who causes his own confession and if any outside force is at fault it would be Hester, certainly not Pearl. Rather than Peals actions, it was Dimmesdale’s “sense of what is right and his feelings of guilt,” says Sampson, that provided a powerful motivation for confession.
Dimmesdale's Concealment In The Scarlet Letter
1317 Words | 6 PagesHester is punished by being publicly humiliated, forced to the top of the scaffold and to expose her scarlet letter that she wore, and being booed and hissed at amongst the public. As Dimmesdale is upon the scaffold, he calls to the citizens of the town during the night, and Hester and Pearl soon join him, when a meteor later appears in the sky. The meteor appears in the sky looking like a letter A. Dimmesdale thinks that it is a demeaning representation of his sin, just like Hester’s scarlet letter. Chillingworth’s position on the scaffold involves Dimmesdale, Hester and Pearl upon the scaffold with him, with Dimmesdale revealing Chillingworth’s true evil figure after the torture he had committed upon Dimmesdale as revenge for his adulterous affair with Hester. The idea of the scaffold becoming a unifying device comes from the dynamic changes it goes through.
Guilt In Dimmesdale's The Scarlet Letter
404 Words | 2 PagesGuilt 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
How Does Nathaniel Hawthorne Use Biblical Allusions In The Scarlet Letter
1458 Words | 6 PagesHowever, he also uses these allusions to create a new side to his narrative as evident when he describes Hester’s resilience, and to create a new element in the plot as evident in his description of Dimmesdale’s penance and need for redemption. Therefore, Hawthorne demonstrates an effective use of allusions to craft a religious and detailed narrative for The Scarlet Letter by reviewing on parallels between the Bible and the novel’s main characters. There’s more to The Scarlet Letter than these allusions though, and there are many questions to answer about this book. These questions may never be answered fully, but by reading the novel itself, we might find the right places to start searching for answers and formulate our own opinions on the matter. What’s important from this novel is the realistic warning about what might happens when an individual place themselves too highly among others, a message Hawthorne writes to warn against the fervor of transcendentalism of his time.
Arthur Dimmesdale's Guilt Quotes
1158 Words | 5 PagesDimmesdale suffers differently from Hester, because while she “bore it all” to the townspeople (181), his fears forced him to hide his sin, living a life full of “nothing but despair” (177). Hester, though made a social pariah of the town, has a more honest and healthy way of dealing with her sin. Because Hester is forced to face her wrongdoings under the watchful eye of her Puritan neighbors, she did not have the same guilt of secrecy that Dimmesdale did. Dimmesdale, by hiding his sin, allows himself to become a captive to his guilt. The way that Dimmesdale dealt with his guilt was unhealthy for him, both mentally and physically.
Syntax In The Scarlet Letter
1592 Words | 7 PagesDue to the fact that Dimmesdale and Hester could not even ignore their initial attraction, the passion that carries throughout their relationship is undeniable. The love they posses for one another only grows stronger as their community and religion constantly reiterates how the should not be together. Not only having admiration for one other, once their child come into the world, they both carry intense amounts of devotion towards keeping it safe. Though Dimmesdale is scared to admit, it is adamant to readers that he cares for her even more so than himself. As Pearl faces the same shame as her parents, such as being called “an imp of evil, emblem and product of sin" (Hawthorne, 129), her need for care and attention grows larger.
The Guilt Of Dimmesdale In Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'The Scarlet Letter'
319 Words | 2 PagesErin Joel Mrs. Janosy English 2H P 5 22 October 2015 Quote Explication Dimmesdale is trying to overcome a conflict within his own soul, defying his own religion, and choosing to do wrong by keeping his sin to himself. In a theocracy type community like Dimmesdale's, God is known as the supreme civil ruler, and a crime would be known as a sin. On the other hand, Hester’s sin was made known to the public, receiving the public shame and ridicule she deserved. During the duration of time when the public knew Dimmesdale was hiding his sin, “the agony with which this public tortured him” (Hawthorne 119).
Heroism In The Scarlet Letter
476 Words | 2 PagesThis again shows that he is not afraid to be with Hester through this ordeal. Dimmesdale is also shown in the book to be a generally a nice person. An example of this is is throughout the book, he tries to get more involved in Pearl’s Life as he sees that they are precious moments with his daughter. Another example is when Dimmesdale says to everyone publically he has committed the sin of adultery. Instead of reporting him to the authorities and having him punished, they congratulate him for being holy as he’s always been.
How Does Nathaniel Hawthorne End The Scarlet Letter
379 Words | 2 PagesNathaniel Hawthorne surely had the option to end The Scarlet Letter happily with Hester, Dimmesdale, and Pearl running off into the sunset together. However, he does not which should be predictable to the audience considering the overall characterization, tone, and purpose of this novel. Hawthorne’s setting is Puritan New England where odd women are accused and executed for witchcraft and children who play in the forest are considered diabolical. The tone is indubitably somber and it does not improve as the novel goes on.
Summary: Symbolism Within The Scarlet Letter
616 Words | 3 PagesOne of the best signs of symbolism is repetition shown throughout the story. The scaffold reappears within The Scarlet Letter three times within the writing; in the beginning, midway through the writing, and towards the end. In each scenario where Hester is reunited with the scaffold, Hawthorne uses distinct similarities and differences that help enhance the meaning. Through Hawthorne’s word choice, one can clearly see the bountiful embarrassment brought by Hester being shamed on the scaffold; "a penalty, which in our days, would refer a degree of mocking infamy and ridicule, might then be interested with almost as strong a dignity as the punishment of death itself" (Hawthorne 44). The scaffold directly symbolizes emotion such as persecution and confession.
Psychological Nature In The Scarlet Letter
877 Words | 4 PagesSomething so small can alter someone’s psychological nature. During the time of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne; Chillingworth, Dimmesdale, Hester and Pearl did not have the things many people used today to treat these disorders and diseases. Pearl, Hester, Dimmesdale and Chillingworth all obtain some sort of these disorder that transforms their characters into something that causes uproar throughout the community. Hawthorne portrays the psychological nature of the novel through the development of anxiety, mood, depression and psychotic disorders in the four main characters. Pearl, Hester, Dimmesdale and Chillingworth.
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