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The Arduousness Of Lies In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Making Connections – The Arduousness of Lies Lies are often told spontaneously as the result of troubling events occurring to someone or something and are often used to manipulate segments of these events in order to attempt to alleviate the trouble or punishment given to the causer of the event. In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the character Dimmesdale committed a sin and has withheld this secret for the rest of the town, while he watched the other perpetrator of the sin be punished, ridiculed, and isolated by the town of Boston. The pressure and guilt of lies is often too great of a force to withstand, judging by a past life experience, Dimmesdale reviled his secret to alleviate this dreadful feeling of pressure and guilt. At the age …show more content…

Mike suggested we hide the bike in the woods and say that it was stolen, by a group of teenager. Petrified about how upset Ryan would be, I agreed. However, the next day I felt as though the guilt was devouring my mind and I could not withstand it any longer. Eventually I brought the bike back to my house, where I told my dad about what happened. Although my dad was upset that I ruined my friend’s new bike, he helped fix the chain and made me tell Ryan what happened. Ryan forgave me, and was happy that I told him the truth. Although the guilt had only agonized me for a day as opposed to Dimmesdale’s guilt agonizing him for seven years, in essence, both situations demonstrate the effects of secrets and lies. Although lying may have seemed like an easier and more beneficial solution, the degrading effects of keeping a secret far outweigh the benefits of telling the lie. This same principle applied to Dimmesdale’s life, the burden of keeping a secret far outweighed the integrity he maintained of his good name by living a lie. Hence why Dimmesdale reviled his secret and confessed the truth, just as I

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