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The Letter With Hester Prynne And Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale's The Scarlet Letter

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Other than the inflation of chaos in a community, it appears that strict religious law codes may lead people to more pious lifestyles and can cause people to be more drawn to sin. We see numerous times in The Scarlet Letter, how these types of codes lead to people sinning more and more. Although a behavior system based on religious scripture also leads to more chaos in this book, the increase in sin is mainly highlighted. Being that religious based law codes can be so controlling, people living under them are more motivated and more likely to sin further than ever before. Along with these sins, comes regret. This regret is seen in The Scarlet Letter with Hester Prynne and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is a minister in a Puritan society who commited the crime of adultery with Hester Prynne. Adultery is sin and breaks one of the ten commandments, so it is strongly forbade from the church. Due to the fact that Dimmesdale is a minister, he felt immense guilt and sorrow for his sin and frets about it throughout the entirety of the novel. We see him regretting his sin and wishing he could stop having this strong feeling of guilt present in his life. This guilt is built because of the overwhelming sense of religion in his life. He is expected to obtain his role as a minister in the community and as a follower of God. In the end, we see Dimmesdale confess on the scaffold that he is the one who had an affair because he was unable to take the guilt anymore.

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