The Sin Of Dimmesdale In The Scarlet Letter

In the book The scarlet letter , Nathaniel Hawthorne questions the reader by questioning whether it is okay to punish sinners since we all have committed sins. Scarlet letter takes place in massachustes in new england in the time of colonization of the new world.at the time massachustes is very religious and the church has alot of power over the people, they control almost evry aspect of their life and punish thoose who commit sins. Dimmesdale is the head of the church in salem massachusetts and he is defined by how people admired him and how people liked him, this traits affect the theme and other characters in the story because it makes dimmesdale look pure and sin free making people make wrong assumption and decisions when it come to dimmesdale.

One action, a split second decision can undo all good deeds in a person 's life. This often occurs in novels such as The Crucible by Arthur Miller or The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne where characters make a life altering decision that causes them pain in the end. These character traits are used so often it becomes something of a stereotype, similar to the characters’ personalities in these iconic novels. The authors use cliches to express the idea that kind hearted people can become sinners despite their goodness.

In 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.

When we keep secrets we also keep guilt and guilt will destroy us from the inside. In the book of scarlet letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and how one woman who committed adultery with a character named dimmesdale who is the town revered. Dimmesdale kept secrets to maintaining his reputation but actions the guilt eats him from the inside.

Dimmesdale and Chillingworth both have secrets that make them look and act differently, their secrets affect their character and how they do their job. Dimmesdale is the father of Pearl but he doesn 't want to face the same humiliation as Hester did for his sins. Because of his secret he self punishes and fasts, he also preaches better than he did before although his health is failing. Chillingworth’s secret is that he was the husband of Hester while he was away, before she cheated on him. Chillingworth gets uglier and uglier driven by the need to get revenge on Pearl’s father. Both characters affect others and their own lives good and bad because of the secrets they keep.

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. For seven years, Dimmesdale pretends he is innocent of adultery and gets praises for his faux act. Dimmesdale even says so himself that he feels extremely guilty and would rather share his crime than to keep it in secret. He obviously does not prefer sharing his crime with the public because he waits seven long years to do so. He was too obsessed with what others think and gossip about him.

According to Hawthorne, the consequence of sin is mental deterioration as represented by Reverend Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale is a priest that has committed a vile crime, although only a scanty amount of people know about it. Dimmesdale has not publically announced his sin, which in turn worsens his mental health due to guilt. Dimmesdale stood in front of the town when his past lover, Hester, was being publically humiliated and never uttered a word, only placed “his hand upon his heart” (59). The consequence of not admitting his immoral sin was ultimate guilt. Dimmesdale suffered through each day with the unbending remorse for what he had done. This sin deteriorated Dimmesdale’s mental health, leaving him with minute strength and power. Dimmesdale

“Guilt is the source of sorrows, the avenging fiend that follows us behind with whips and stings.” - Nicholas Rowe. This message is shown in The Scarlet Letter, through Hawthorne’s character Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale was created by Nathaniel Hawthorne representing a weak character in many ways. One of the many weak decisions made by Hawthorne that stood out was the guilt he had built up, eating away at him causing an internal struggle if he should do right and confess or if he should let the one he loves suffer because of his actions. Hawthorne sent messages throughout this film, people must accept responsibility for their actions or suffer the consequences and the choices people make determine what they become. Although the character Arthur

The guilt of his sin has eaten him alive, so much that his visage and demeanor are almost cadaverous. Dimmesdale does not confess his sin until the end of the novel because he does not want to disappoint his congregation. He knows that if he reveals what he has done, then his followers will lose their respect for him. He is burdened with his sin; therefore, he inflicts pain upon himself for his wrongdoing. Dimmesdale goes as far as having vigils all night, being tortured by “diabolic shapes,” and emaciating and whipping himself. Dimmesdale punishes himself because he wants to repent for the sin that he has committed. However, he will not repent for his sin until he confesses.

Everybody makes mistakes. Today, making mistakes has a more lenient punishment than mistakes did in the puritan community. Currently, only very serious crimes result in jail time or any punishment by the government, but this was not the case for the Puritans. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester and Dimmesdale committed a sin of adultery. This sin negatively affected many of the characters. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Chillingworth, Hester, and Dimmesdale are all negatively affected by the sin that is committed (however), Dimmesdale was the person that suffered the most.

One quote by Dave Grohl, “Guilt is cancer. Guilt will confine you, torture you, and destroy you as an artist. It's a black wall. It's a thief,” The feeling of guilt is one that may leave others in sorrow and despair. Without confessing what one has done will eventually lead to a life of fear, nervousness, and insecurity. Within the novel The Scarlett Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne gives a good representation of how secret sin will destroy the sinner, which is then shown by the change in character by Reverend Aurthur Dimmesdale. Within The Scarlett Letter Dimmesdale evolves because of the sin that he has committed.

Expectations of Dimmesdale to be “morally pure” and free of sin have created a divergence between Dimmesdale’s reality and the expectations of the public. This divide causes a corruption of Dimmesdale that smolders underneath the façade of the public 's perception and his reality. The conflict manifests itself in Dimmesdale as illness; a metaphor that provides a clear view on Hawthorne 's views of society: how divergence of an individual 's reality and society 's demands sickens and corrupts an individual. Dimmesdale 's isolation within his house allows him to escape others and atone for his sins by prayer, but Chillingworth 's influence turns it into a place of evil, forcing Dimmesdale to hide his secret. Chillingworth 's constant presence becomes a corruptive force in Dimmesdale 's life, and his constant presence damages Dimmesdale 's physical state.

After Dimmesdale and Hester have their discussion in the forest about freeing themselves from the harsh Puritan society, Dimmesdale ends up having a characteristic transformation. Dimmesdale feels that he has just released his sin that he has been keeping secret all this time, which causes him “at every step to do some strange, wild, wicked thing or another, with a sense that it would be at once involuntary and intentional, in spite of himself, yet growing out of a profounder self than that which opposed the impulse.” This passage is closely foreshadowing how in the new future, Dimmesdale is going to break free from his common characteristic of the noble minister, that he has worn so far throughout the story. Hawthorne also chooses to mention

Roger Chillingworth and Arthur Dimmesdale were two of the main sinners in The Scarlet Letter. Both characters kept their sins secrete throughout the story. These sins included adultery, revenge, and even murder. Out of the two sinners, Chillingworth was the worst, because he never felt guilt for the terrible things he was doing. Dimmesdale spent his entire life in guilt and remorse for the sins he had committed (“Who”).

As humans, we live in the that are brimming with sins and evil desire. As the creator of all the creatures, God, sent his only son to save the people from the control of devil. The only thing we have to do is to acknowledge our mistake. Bible teach us that we should tell the truth to God and your neighbors, and God will forgive you. But people are worse, they not only hide the sin and their evil behaviors but also try to deny it. We are born sinners, we can not be save only based on how we act but depend on do we acknowledge our sins. In the novel Scarlet letter, author Nathaniel Hawthorne compare and contract the hidden sin and the revealed sin but use the end of Dimmesdale and Hester to claim the consequence of hide sins.