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, know 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 obsessive need to achieve revenge.
As a devout Puritan minister, Dimmesdale preaches against sin. Yet, 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’ cheat, to look into an eye that recognizes me for what I am (Hawthorne 176)!
Dimmesdale expresses signs of guilt throughout the novel to himself and to Hester. He speaks about his never-ending sin. He sees himself more and more as an unforgivable sinner
One spontaneous but significant mistake made by Arther Dimmesdale caused him to live the rest of his life crawling with guilt. Arthur Dimmesdale, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, had an affair with a married woman, and that crime ruined the lives of almost everyone in the novel. The Scarlet Letter remains a classic to this day because it emphasizes harsh penance which highlights the difference between the treatment of sinners today and those during the 17th century. The way Puritans view sin and guilt cause Dimmesdale’s life to come to an unfortunate end.
Hester 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
Life for the Puritans was, to say the least, not very exciting or enjoyable. In his novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne demonstrates how Puritan society affects its citizen’s daily lives. In the overtly religious, strict town of Boston, morals and laws are greatly enforced. When the beautiful, young woman, Hester Prynn, commits adultery, the people of Boston respond angrily. The town minister, Dimmesdale, also feels the shame and burden of the sin committed.
In 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
In addition, Dimmesdale fells guilt even though he still does not confess. Narrator says, “The scarlet letter burned on Hester Prynne’s bosom. Here was another ruin, the responsibility of which came partly home to her” (narrator 154). This ruins Hester life. People in her town wanted her to leave the town or be punished such as wear a big red A on her bosom for the rest of her life.
Hawthorne wanted his readers to understand that two people who have sinned can seek forgiveness and receive it. Throughout the story many stereotypes are expressed and Hawthorne used the listed stereotypes to express the idea that all people, both pure of heart and evil of soul, commit sins. When Hester, a beautiful, young woman and Dimmesdale a minister have an affair, thus committing a sin, they both provide an example of a cliche that good people make poor decisions. Hawthorne used Hester and Dimmesdale as stereotypes to prove that all people, no matter the morale or disposition, commit
Penance vs. Penitence In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne writes of the hypocrisy of the Puritans in the 1600’s. He expresses the hardships of Hester Prynne and her adulterous lover, Authur Dimmesdale, who is also the town’s preacher. Because Reverend Dimmesdale is a very noble preacher, he has to persist with the guilt of his sin and continue to preach how one should live a holy and pure lifestyle.
Dimmesdale 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.
Erin 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).
Reverend Dimmesdale’s physical condition diminishes the longer he keeps his sin a secret. He feels so guilty, he tortures himself by fasting and whipping in addition to feeling like a hypocrite when his gives sermons. Reverend Dimmesdale expresses, “Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! Mine burns in secret!” (Hawthorne 107).
All that Dimmesdale has to live for his life is serving out his sentence; this is where, Dimmesdale must make a huge decision on whether he should conceal sin, or let his words roam free. When the minister is able to go into the forest, which is a place unlike Puritan society, he is able to talk with Hester, which lets him become his true self: where he is able to come out to the public of his
This remark implies that Dimmesdale’s morality revolves around his self-conscience and what is right and wrong in the eyes of society and his social status as a clergymen. He demands Hester to exploit him for his actions in taking part of the adultery scenario with Hester. With respect to Kohlberg’s level of moral reasoning, he is at stage 4 “Maintaining the Social Order” for risking his entire reputation as a respected man in society over the action of one sin. Then, in Chapter 10 by now most of the Puritan society built suspicion of Chillingworth as a devil seeking to take ill Dimmesdale's soul. Since Chillingworth was first seen god like for his knowledge in medical care, he was truly valued by the Puritan society.
In the “Scarlet Letter,” Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays hypocrisy of the Puritan society, where the protagonist Hester Prynne face many consequences of her actions and the how she tries to redeem herself to the society. During the seventeenth puritans believe that it is their mission to punish the ones who do not follow God’s word and it is their job to stop those from sinning. Therefore, the hypercritical puritan society punishes Hester harshly for committing adultery, but in Hester’s mind, she believes that what she did was not a sin but acts of love for her man. Eventually, she redeems herself by turning her crime into an advantage to help those in need, yet the Puritan society still view her as a “naughty bagger.” (Hawthorne 78)
Because of the effects that Dimmesdale’s sin had on those living in his society, his sin is the greatest of all those presented in the novel, as illustrated by Hawthorne through Dimmesdale’s interactions with others. Because, unlike Hester, Dimmesdale hides his sin from the
In this essay, we will focus on the effects this ideology had on the treatment of Hester and Dimmesdale, and the effects it had on Dimmesdale after he confessed to committing adultery. The Puritans’ treatment of women is blatantly evident at the beginning of the book where Hester is awaiting conviction upon the scaffold for her act of adultery. The townspeople present at the trial presented a very negative sentiment towards Hester,